Potential of milk fatty acid composition to predict diet composition and authenticate feeding systems and altitude origin of European bulk milk

Abstract

The aims of this work were to elucidate the potential of using milk fatty acid (FA) concentration to predict cow diet composition and altitude of bulk milk collected in 10 different European countries and to authenticate cow-feeding systems and altitude of the production area using a data set of 1,248 bulk cow milk samples and associated farm records. The predictions based on FA for cow diet composition were excellent for the proportions of fresh herbage [coefficient of determination (R2)=0.81], good for hay, total herbage-derived forages, and total preserved forages (R2>0.73), intermediate for corn silage and grass silage (R2>0.62), and poor for concentrates (R2<0.51) in the cow diet. Milk samples were assigned to groups according to feeding system, level of concentrate supplementation, and altitude origin. Milk FA composition successfully authenticated cow-feeding systems dominated by a main forage (>93% of samples correctly classified), but the presence of mixed diets reduced the discrimination. Altitude prediction reliability was intermediate (R2<0.62). Milk FA composition was not able to authenticate concentrate supplementation level in the diet (<58% of samples correctly classified). Similarly, the altitude origin was not successfully authenticated by milk FA composition (<76% of samples correctly classified). The potential of milk FA composition to authenticate cow feeding was confirmed using a data set representative of the diversity of European production conditions.

Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on the Nutrition of Herbivores

“…Similarly, also the SFA content of pasture-derived cheese was 74.87g/100 g FA lower than that of the control cheese. This is in coherence with similar finding in Europe (Coppa et al, 2015;Bovolenta et al, 2014).…”

Effect of farming system on donkey milk composition

“…However, the aforementioned studies followed the evolution of the FA composition of milk collected from individual animals throughout the entire lactation period in controlled condition and with a constant diet . On the other hand, the effect of animal related factors, such as breed and lactation stage, is known to have a negligible effect on the FA composition of milk in dairy cows on farms, compared to animal diet . The results of the present study have shown a greater effect on milk FA of the farming system, with a limited effect of the lactation stage, which is indicated by the higher ANOVA Fisher's F coefficients for the farm effect than for DIM.…”

“…Milk samples were analyzed for FA composition by gas chromatography (GC), as described by Coppa et al . The method was adapted to donkey milk because of the lower lipid content and its larger variation in donkey milk than in cow milk.…”

“…Then 6 mL of 6% K 2 CO 3 water solution was added after cooling. The FA methyl esters were separated as a supernatant after centrifugation and injected into a GC equipped with a flame ionization detector, separating and identifying the FA methyl esters as described by Coppa et al ., with the sole adaptation of the split ratio to the lower fat content of donkey milk. A volume of 1 µL was injected into the column at a split ratio ranging from 2.5:1 to 100:1 according to the fat content of the sample.…”

Apparent recovery of C18 polyunsaturated fatty acids from feed in cow milk: A meta-analysis of the importance of dietary fatty acids and feeding regimens in diets without fat supplementation

“…Likewise, previous studies have associated the effect of grazing on enrichment of ALA in ruminant tissues with botanical and thus biochemical diversity, in particular with a diversity of plants with elevated contents of secondary compounds (Leiber et al, 2005;Ferlay et al, 2006;Cabiddu et al, 2010;Willems et al, 2014), which can influence ruminal biohydrogenation. Generally, in the present as well as in other meta-analyses (Coppa et al, 2013(Coppa et al, , 2015, grazing appears as a feeding strategy that has a particular strong influence on the milk FA profiles.…”