Minimal Levels of Dietary Oils, Grain Oils or Supplementary Oil, Affecting the Composition and Stability of Carcass Fat and Meat of Broilers

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted to examine the effect of low levels of dietary oil, supplied either by added soybean oil or originating from the grain (corn or milo), on the composition and stability of carcass fat and meat of broilers fed glucose-starch-soybean meal diets. The addition of 0.3% soybean oil or 20% yellow corn or 40% milo sufficed to increase markedly the degree of unsaturation of abdominal fat, mainly due to the increase in linoleic acid concentration, accompanied by an enhanced susceptibility to oxidation. Further increase in the degree of unsaturation of the carcass fat, due to higher levels of dietary oils, promoted further decrease in its stability in the cases of dietary soybean and milo oils, but not with corn oil. Moreover, differences in the degree of unsaturation of the carcass fat of broilers, fed either corn or milo as the sole grain (in the absence of added antioxidant and vitamin E), were not markedly reflected in the stability of either abdominal fat or meat, presumably due to the higher α-tocopherol content in tissues of broilers fed corn.Corn-oil-derived linoleic acid was deposited into adipose tissue at a significantly higher rate than that originating from milo or soybean oils.