Researches Regarding the Fatty Acids Content in Turkey Meat

Abstract

The lipid content of the poultry meat reveals both in domestic and wild birds a greater quantities of unsaturated fatty acids (UFA), [oleic acids (C18:1) are dominating in all tissues] comparing to the saturated fatty acids (SFA). Previous studies have shown that during the development of fat deposits there is observed an increasing of SFA and MUFA comparing to PUFA, with an impact on the decline of PUFA content and consequently of the PUFA/SFA; similar results were highlighted also in our study. The extraction of meat lipid fraction was performed according to the protocol described by Folch. The working method used in this case was specific for the lipid separation in meat samples with a weight of ~2.5 g. Detection of methyl esters was performed using a gas-chromatograph GC Carlo Erba 5300 mega series, connected to a flame ionization detector and to a splitted injector. For 1 µL sample analysis, a capillary column Omegawax 320 (Supelcco inc., Bellafonte, PA.) with highly polar stationary phase, type SP-2380 – 60 m length and 0.25 mm thickness was used. The quantitative and qualitative description of fatty acids profile of turkey meat lipids revealed a wide range of variation, the mean of main lipid fractions have shown a predominantly content in C16:0, C18:0 for SFA, C18:1 ω-9 and C16:1 for MUFA, while for PUFA a content of C18:2ω-6 cis, C18:3ω-3 and C20:4ω-6 was recorded.