Journal article

Relationship between muscle antioxidant status, forms of iron, polyunsaturated fatty acids and functionality (retail colour) of meat in lambs

EN Ponnampalam, KL Butler, MB McDonagh, JL Jacobs, DL Hopkins

Meat Science | Published : 2012

Abstract

The relationship between muscle vitamin E, forms of iron, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and the redness of meat (retail display) at days 3 to 4 post slaughter from lambs offered 2 different diets was examined. Meat redness was positively related to vitamin E and heme iron and negatively related to total n-3, total n-6 and total PUFA content. However, after adjusting for the effects of vitamin E and heme iron content, there was no indication of any residual relationship between redness at days 3-4 of retail display and total n-3, total n-6 or total PUFA. This indicates that the relationship between PUFA and redness in meat is mediated through the effects of heme iron and vitamin E in the..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

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Funding Acknowledgements

The muscle samples for this study was collected from a project jointly funded by the Australian Sheep Industry CRC and the Department of Primary Industries, Victoria, Australia. The financial support for the measurement of colour in meat and analysis of vitamin E (alpha-tochopherol) and forms of iron content in meat was provided by the Department of Primary Industries, Victoria (Project - Novel High Value Lamb). The authors would like to thank Matthew Kerr and Athala Natarampatta for the support with slaughter, muscle sample collection and colour measurement, and Tim Plozza and George Croatto for the assistance in laboratory analysis.