Abstract
Simple SummarySuckling lamb meat is one of the most relevant products of the Mediterranean traditional dairy sheep industry. Being lamb fed exclusively with maternal milk, meat quality is mainly affected by the mother’s milk composition and hence by the mother feeding during gestation and lactation. This paper summarizes the state of the art about the effect of the dam and suckling lamb feeding systems on lamb meat quality, with special attention to the lipid fraction considered beneficial to human health.The effects of the dams and suckling lamb feeding systems on the fatty acid (FA) profile of lamb meat are reviewed in this article. The suckling lamb can be considered a functional monogastric, and therefore, its meat FA composition is strongly influenced by the FA composition of maternal milk. The major source of variation for ewe milk FA composition is represented by pasture amount and type. In the traditional sheep breeding system of the Mediterranean area, the main lambing period occurs in late autumn–early winter, and ewes are able to exploit the seasonal availability of the natural pastures at their best. Therefore, lambs start suckling when maternal milk concentrations of vaccenic, rumenic, and n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated FA in maternal milk are the highest. When maternal diet is mainly based on hay and concentrates, the use of vegetable oils can be considered a good strategy to improve the meat FA profile of suckling lambs.
Highlights
The role of this review is to provide advanced updates about relationships between the fatty acid (FA) profile of suckling lamb meat and feeding systems of dams and suckling lambs aimed at improving the ewe-milk-fed suckling lamb meat
Suckling lamb meat represents an important source of lipids and provides some FA
That are involved in many biological activities connected to the health status [18], especially essential FA [19] and specific long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA), which are crucial for normal fetal development and neonatal growth [20,21]
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Meat quality strongly depends on maternal milk composition [3,10,11]. For this reason, research on dairy sheep breeds has focused on milk nutritional and technological properties in order to improve firstly the quality of dairy products [1] and of suckling lamb meat. The fat and fatty acids (FA) profiles of maternal milk strongly affect meat FA profile with consequences on its nutritional and sensory characteristics. /or lactation [3,7,15,16,17] can affect meat characteristics For this reason, several studies on the modification of fat content and FA composition of lamb meat have been carried out. The role of this review is to provide advanced updates about relationships between the FA profile of suckling lamb meat and feeding systems of dams and suckling lambs aimed at improving the ewe-milk-fed suckling lamb meat
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