Nutritive value of the dromedary camel meat

Abstract

The current study was conducted to spotlight on the nutritive value of the dromedary camel meat from different ages in Egypt. total of 50 samples were randomly collected over a period of 10 months from the hindquarter (glutobicepis) muscle of male camel carcasses slaughtered at Assiut and Sharkia Governorates. The samples were divided into two groups according to the age: Group A for young age (1≤5 years) and Group B for old ages (5-8 years). All samples were subjected to a proximate analysis (moisture, protein, fat, ash, and carbohydrate). Only 16 samples from each age were analyzed for some minerals content (Ca, Fe, K, P, Na, and Mg) and for cholesterol, caloric value and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) contents. The statistical analysis of the results declared the presence of a significant increase (p<0.01) in fat, ash, carbohydrate, energy, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, cholesterol and conjugated linoleic acid contents of the camel meat samples with an increasing age. Camel meat from different ages has high nutritive value and it contains considerable amount of protein, which is nearly similar or sometimes higher than other red meat. Pointing to cholesterol and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content of camel meat, the obtained mean values in young and old ages were 31.11, 3.19 and 50.63, 5.99 mg/100gm fat, respectively. In conclusion, meat from young camels could be healthier due to its lower fat and cholesterol content.