Effect of Ethanolamine and Certain Dietary Metabolites on the Storage Stability of Frozen Turkeys

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONTHE stability of animal fat, insofar as it is affected by ante-mortem conditions, is generally considered to be a function of the fatty acid composition, and the content of phospholipids, tocopherols, and other naturally occurring antioxidants. Increased fat stabilities have been obtained with several species by adding large amounts of tocopherol to a tocopherol-low diet, but the value of reasonable levels of tocopherol added to a diet already nutritionally adequate in tocopherols is not well established (Criddle and Morgan, 1947; Lundberg et al., 1944; Watts et al., 1946).Kummerow and co-workers have recently investigated the possibility of stabilizing turkey fat by feeding various natural antioxidants, and other metabolites, such as choline or ethanolamine, which might modify the fat by either favoring the synthesis of stabilizing phospholipids, or by metabolizing and effectively removing the unstable unsaturated fatty acids contributed by the diet. Experiments with immature (13 week) turkeys (Kummerow et .