Enhancing the vitamin content of meat and eggs: Implications for the human diet

Abstract

Sahlin, A. and House, J. D. 2006. Enhancing the vitamin content of meat and eggs: Implications for the human diet. Can. J.Anim. Sci. 86: [181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191][192][193][194][195]. Enhancing the vitamin content of meat and eggs provides an opportunity to increase the levels of key nutrients-especially those deemed to be at marginal or insufficient levels-in the human diet for optimal health and well-being. In general, enhancement efforts have focussed on developing feeding strategies to achieve optimal vitamin levels in meat and eggs. The definition of an optimal strategy is influenced by factors such as: (1) the efficiency of vitamin transfer into the final product, (2) the impact on animal performance or health, (3) the impact on the quality characteristics of the final product and (4) economic considerations. Vitamins are an extremely diverse class of nutrients in terms of their chemical and physical properties. Each vitamin differs with respect to stability during processing, susceptibility to bioconversion within the intestinal tract, digestibility, transport and storage in tissues. It follows that the development of vitamin-enriched meat and eggs will be highly dependent on the interaction of multiple factors. Ultimately, the success of such strategies must be judged against the contributions that the enriched products make to the human diet in terms of vitamin intake and consumer acceptance of the products.

Methionine, folic acid and vitamin B12in growing-finishing pigs: Impact on growth performance and meat quality

“…Vitamin B 12 concentrations in the longissimus dorsi [ng/g] increased with the level of dietary cyanocobalamin values, being lower for V0 pigs (2.62 + 0.13) than for V1 (3.66 + 0.11) (p ¼ 0.01) and V2 pigs (4.06 + 0.12) (p ¼ 0.01) ( Table 3). Although adding dietary supplements of folic acid and cyanocobalamin appears to be an effective strategy for enhancing the levels of these vitamins in pork, as it was shown for poultry (McCann et al 2004;Sahlin and House, 2006), its relevance for human nutrition is unlikely to be significant. In terms of contribution to the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for folic acid (4400 mg in adults) (Institute of Medicine 1998), the present enrichment of 27% in both V1 and V2 treatments, as compared to that in V0, should be considered as negligible because a portion of 100 g of pork, enriched (V1 and V2) or not (V0), would provide approximately 2.4 mg and 1.8 mg of folates, which corresponds to 0.6% and 0.5% of RDA, respectively.…”

“…This last point applies particularly for folates and vitamin B 12 (Institute of Medicine 1998). However, although dietary supplementation of fat-soluble vitamins is considered an efficient means of improving the vitamin content and oxidative stability of meat, few studies are available to allow the identification of such opportunities or constraints regarding water-soluble vitamins (Sahlin and House 2006). Therefore, the present experiment aimed to assess the effects of interactions of folic acid, vitamin B 12 and methionine on some aspects of methionine metabolism and growth performance in growing-finishing pigs as well as on the quality and nutrient composition of pork.…”

“…Enriching the vitamin content of meat through dietary supplementation to the animal may provide an opportunity to increase vitamins that are at marginal or insufficient levels in the human diet for optimal health and well-being (Sahlin and House 2006). This last point applies particularly for folates and vitamin B 12 (Institute of Medicine 1998).…”

Effect of dietary supplementation of spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) and thyme (Thymus vulgaris) on carcass composition, meat physical traits, and vitamin B12 content on growing rabbits

“…Although other examples of vitamin B 12 fortification in pig-meat products via dietary vitamin B 12 supplementation are reported in the literature (Sahlin and House, 2006), said supplementation consisted of synthetic vitamin B 12 . Vitamin B 12 content of meat and meat products is not often reported in studies evaluating meat quality, and when it is quantified, great differences can be noted: vitamin B 12 content of lean beef meat ranges between 0.8 and 3.9 µg/100 g meat, that of lean pork meat between 0.3 and 2 µg/100 g, and that of lamb between 0.9 and 3.5 µg/100 g (Giguère et al, 2005;Ortigues-Marty et al, 2005;Sahlin and House, 2005;Truswell, 2007;Williams et al, 2007;Schönfeldt et al, 2011).…”

Introductory Chapter: Meat Science and Human Nutrition

“…EPA and DHA are principally consolidated into muscle tissue phospholipids. In this way, lean meat should be considered when dietary LC n-3 PUFA admissions are resolved [24]. Fatty fish and fish are known to be a rich wellspring of the LC n-3 PUFA, bringing about general well-being proposals for consistent utilization of fatty fish [25].…”