Abstract
The importance of the linkage between nutrition and health is a hot issue. Like other food-related sectors, the meat industry is undergoing foremost transformations, driven among other things by changes in consumer requirements. The present study was designed to evaluate the lipid stability and antioxidative potential of leg and breast microsomal fraction of broiler meat fed on ALA and ATA. For the first 3 weeks of growth, broilers were fed on feed supplemented with ATA (200 mg/kg of feed) and during the last 3 weeks broilers were fed on feed supplemented with ALA (25, 75, 150 mg/kg of feed) and a constant level of ATA (200 mg/kg of feed). The body weight of the carcass was measured after every week of growth until 6 weeks. Positive correlation between the antioxidant activity and the TPC was observed. Higher values of TBARS were detected in leg muscles than in breast muscles. HPLC data revealed ALA and ATA contents were higher in T-4 (leg, 5.55 +/- 0.19 and 3.87 +/- 0.15 mu g/mg of protein; breast, 5.63 +/- 0.20 and 2.03 +/- 0.10 mu g/mg of protein, respectively) and lowest in T-5 (ALA, leg, 1.40 +/- 0.06 mu g/mg of protein; breast, 1.54 +/- 0.05 mu g/mg of protein; ATA, leg, 1.25 +/- 0.06 mu g/mg of protein; breast, 0.63 +/- 0.008 mu g/mg of protein), in which the only oxidized oil was used. Oxidized oil in feed reduced weight gain and increased TBARS, whereas TPC, DPPH, ALA, and ATA values decreased in both leg and breast meat.