Search

Meat is recognised as a highly nutritive food. With cooking, the meat enhances its nutritional value and becomes more digestible. However, high cooking temperatures lead to several chemical modifications in meat. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in sous-vide cooking. The aim of this research was to study the influence of two sous-vide cooking methods on physicochemical characteristics of Longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle from 24 pigs fed with two different diets: control group (C) had a basal barley/ soybean diet; in the linseed group (L), 5% of extruded linseed replaced the same amount of barley. At 24 h post mortem, LT muscles were sliced, vacuum sealed and stored at −18 °C until analysis. Samples were cooked in water bath at two different combinations of temperature and time: ‘A’ 80 °C of the bath water as long as the core temperature of the pork reached 70 °C; ‘B’ 60 °C for 15 h. After the cooking process, the samples were kept under refrigeration (2 °C) for 24 h. The day after, cooking loss, colour, pH, microbial growth and tenderness were determined. Microbial growth was analysed also in the raw meat. Statistical analysis was performed by means of ANOVA, using the GLM procedure of SAS. Dietary treatment (C vs. L) and cooking condition (A vs. B) were used as independent variables. Dietary treatments did not produce significant differences in pH, colour, cooking loss and tenderness. Colour parameters were affected by cooking method: a* values of the internal part of the sample and b* values of the external part were higher for the samples cooked at 60 °C (a* 4.74 vs. 3.97 for B and A, respectively, p

This study aimed to verify previous research findings showing that feeding maltodextrins (M) and dextrose (D) leads to a reduction of voluntary feed intake in the Italian heavy pig. This may be interesting for immunocastrated pigs fed ad libitum (ad lib.), whose feed intake skyrockets after the 2nd vaccination, causing too fatty carcasses at slaughtering. Thirty-six male pigs (Italian Duroc x Italian Large White crossbred) received a double immunocastrating injection at 90 and 162 days of age. At 120 days, weighing 51.84+4.38 kg, the subjects were evenly housed in 9 boxes, fed ad lib. till the 2nd injection and then given, until slaughtering (197 days of age; 144.51±9.70 kg), one of the experimental diets: control diet, ad lib. (CL); control diet, restricted at 7.5% l.w.0.75 (CR); with MD (3.5 + 3.5%; adjusted for energy and protein), ad lib. (MD). The CR diet was introduced as the alternative choice to avoid too fatty carcasses. Compared to the restricted ones, pigs fed ad lib. (with or without MD) showed statistically higher (P

This research aimed to verify the effects of restricted vs ad libitum feeding and of the dietary inclusion of maltodextrins (M) and dextrose (D) on the qualitative traits of muscle longissimus dorsi (LD) and on fatty acid (FA) composition of backfat lipids of immunocastrated intermediate pigs. To this goal, 36 male pigs (Italian Duroc x Italian Large White) were used. The animals, after having received the second immunocastrating injection at 162 days of age, had been allocated for 5 weeks, till slaughtering (144.51 ± 9.70 kg live weight (l.w.)), to one of the three experimental dietary treatments: basal diet given either ad libitum (CL), or restricted at 7.5% l.w.0.75 (CR), or with M and D (3.5% + 3.5%, balanced for energy and protein levels) provided ad libitum (MD). At slaughter, a sample of LD muscle and backfat were collected from each left-half carcass, at the last rib level. At 24h post mortem on the LD samples, pH, colour (CIEL*a*b*, 1976) were determined, further, protein (CP) and intramuscular lipid (IMF) contents (on the fresh and cooked muscle), drip and cooking loss, oxidative stability (TBARS) and tenderness (WBSF) were measured. Moreover, FA composition of backfat was analyzed. The data were submitted to ANOVA with the dietary treatment as independent variable. The two degrees of freedom of the treatment effect were split up a priori in two orthogonal contrasts: CR vs the average of CL+MD and CL vs MD. The CR pigs, compared with ad libitum subjects, exhibited lower IMF (P

Thirty-two male fallow deer, half 18- and half 30-month-old, were slaughtered after a 4-month feeding trial on pasture alone or with daily supplement of 500 g (dry matter) concentrate/head (eight each 18- and 30-month-old). Neither diet nor age produced significant effects on M. longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LM) and on M. semimembranosus (SM) pH and colour. Meat texture properties (Warner-Bratzler-WB Shear Force and compression), water loss and collagen content were unaffected by diet, while the older deer had higher LM WB peak force values (4.15 vs 4.88 kg) and lower collagen solubility (34.61 vs 22.58%). LM and M. semitendinosus (ST) of the supplemented deer had a higher content of fat (pasture vs concentrate feeding: 0.56 vs 0.72% in LM; 0.55 vs 0.78% in ST) and provided lower PUFA, particularly n-3 PUFA, and higher n-6/n-3 ratio (3.30 vs 4.76 in LM; 3.39 vs 4.63 in ST). Thirty-month-olds' LM and ST were fatter than 18-month-olds', and provided lower PUFA, both in the n-6 and n-3 fraction.