Dietary Lecithin Supplementation Can Improve the Quality of the M. Longissimus thoracis

Abstract

Simple SummaryMeat tenderness and texture can be influenced by the connective tissue content. Dietary lecithin offers a means of improving fat digestibility of pigs and reducing the connective tissue of pork. This feeding study confirmed that dietary lecithin decreased the chewiness and improved the fatty acid composition of pork without impacting on growth performance of pigs. Therefore, dietary lecithin supplementation has the potential to improve the quality attributes of pork.AbstractForty crossbred (Large White × Landrace × Duroc) female pigs (16.4 kg ± 0.94 kg) were used to investigate the effect of dietary lecithin supplementation on growth performance and pork quality. Pigs were randomly allocated to a commercial diet containing either 0, 3, 15 or 75 g lecithin/kg of feed during the grower and finisher growth phase. Pork from pigs consuming the diets containing 15 g and 75 g lecithin/kg had lower hardness (P < 0.001) and chewiness (P < 0.01) values compared to the controls. Dietary lecithin supplementation at 75 g/kg significantly increased (P < 0.05) the linoleic acid and reduced (P < 0.05) the myristic acid levels of pork compared to the control and the 3 g/kg and 15 g/kg lecithin supplemented treatments. Pigs fed the 75 g/kg lecithin supplemented diet had lower plasma cholesterol (P < 0.05) at slaughter compared to pigs fed the control diet and the 3 g/kg and 15 g/kg lecithin supplemented treatments. These data indicate that dietary lecithin supplementation has the potential to improve the quality attributes of pork from female pigs.

Dietary lecithin improves feed efficiency without impacting meat quality in immunocastrated male pigs and gilts fed a summer ration containing added fat

“…Lecithin in the present experiment had no effect on meat texture and collagen content. In contrast, dietary lecithin decreased longissimus muscle chewiness and hardness ( Akit et al., 2014 , D'Souza et al., 2015 ) and this improvement was suggested to be due to decreased muscle collagen content ( Akit et al., 2014 ). Dietary lecithin also decreased hardness and chewiness of semitendinosus muscle ( D'Souza et al., 2012 ).…”

“…Effect of lecithin on feed efficiency of pigs fed diets containing vegetable oils was also inconsistent. A few studies showed no changes in the feed efficiency of pigs fed lecithin in diets containing canola oil ( D'Souza et al., 2012 , D'Souza et al., 2015 ). Another study on the other hand, showed lecithin improved feed efficiency in growing-finishing pigs fed diets containing soy oil ( Overland et al., 1993b ).…”

Dietary Lecithin Decreases Skeletal Muscle COL1A1 and COL3A1 Gene Expression in Finisher Gilts

“…DLPC prevented collagen accumulation as evidenced by down-regulation of COL1A1 expression in hepatocyte cell culture [ 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Dietary lecithin supplement in pigs reduced chewiness and hardness of the longissimus muscle [ 16 ] and the improvement in pork chewiness was suggested to be associated with reduced intramuscular collagen [ 17 ]. As a point of reference, the collagen content of the longissimus muscle was 1.51, 1.13, 1.09 and 1.07 mg/g for these same pigs fed 0, 4, 20 and 80 g/kg dietary lecithin, respectively [ 17 ].…”