title: Development of rabbit meat products fortified with n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.
abstract: Rabbit meat is a highly digestible, tasty, low-calorie food, often recommended by nutritionists over other meats. Currently research in the rabbit sector is interested in developing feeding strategies aiming to further increase the nutritional value of rabbit meat as a "functional food" by including n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA), conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), vitamins and antioxidants in rabbit diets and assessing their effects on both raw and stored/processed meat quality properties. Our recent studies indicate that the dietary inclusion from 3 to 6% of linseed might be considered as a way to achieve the enrichment of the meat with α-linolenic acid and to guarantee satisfactory product stability during further processing and storage. Considering that 6% dietary linseed corresponds to a n-3 PUFA content of 8.5% of the total fatty acids and a lipid content of 4.7 g/100 g of leg meat, a content of 396 mg n-3 PUFA/100g meat can be estimated, which represents about 19% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for n-3 PUFA.
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science, University of Bologna, 47023 Cesena (FC), Italy.
authors.forename: Massimiliano
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petracci
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science, University of Bologna, 47023 Cesena (FC), Italy.
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bianchi
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Science, University of Bologna, 47023 Cesena (FC), Italy.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cavani
mesh_terms: D000821:Animal Feed / Q000032:analysis; D000824:Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D000818:Animals; D004032:Diet / Q000662:veterinary; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D015525:Fatty Acids, Omega-3 / Q000737:chemistry*; D019597:Flax / Q000737:chemistry; D005511:Food Handling; D008460:Meat / Q000032:analysis*; D011817:Rabbits
chemical_list: D015525:Fatty Acids, Omega-3