Quality of rabbit meat and phyto-additives

Abstract

Simonová M.P., Chrastinová Ľ., Mojto J., Lauková A., Szábová R., Rafay J. (2010): Quality of rabbit meat and phyto-additives. Czech J. Food Sci., 28: 161-167.The consumption of healthy and nutritive food (rich in proteins and low in cholesterol and lipid contents) is a preferred factor with the contemporary consumers. In addition, natural alternatives are requested to replace the additives used up to now but recently banned. To reach the above given condition, phyto-additives represent a good alternative. The aim of this study was to examine the physicochemical properties and amino acid composition of rabbit meat after the enrichment of rabbit diet with oregano, sage, and Eleutherococcus senticosus extracts, and to make a comparison with the commercial product XTRACT and control samples (without plant extracts). The addition of oregano and sage extracts as well as El. senticosus in the rabbit diet positively influenced the physicochemical properties of rabbit meat by increasing its energy value (P < 0.05 -sage). Supplementing rabbits feed with oregano and sage extracts led to an improvement on the amino acid composition (P < 0.01; P < 0.001 -serine). These findings are also supported by the good health state of rabbits. Outgoing from these results, the diet enriched with the plant extracts is beneficial for the health state of rabbits involving the nutritional quality of rabbit meat in connection with consumers. Nowadays, consumers are increasingly interested in a healthy lifestyle, e.g. energy and nutritional values of foods, which are rich in protein and low in cholesterol and lipid contents. From the nutritional point of view, rabbit meat is flavourful and easily digested, with high nutritional and dietetic properties: this meat contains 20-21% of proteins, unsaturated fatty acids (oleic and linoleic; 60% of all fatty acids), potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium, it has low concentrations of fat, cholesterol, and sodium (Bielanski et al. 2000;Dalle Zotte 2002;Hermida et al. 2006). That is why the rabbit meat is better digested as compared to other kinds of meat (beef, lamb, or pork;Enser et al. 1996) and is recommended for consumption, e.g. for persons with cardiovascular illnesses (Hu & Willett 2002). Moreover, the energy value of rabbit meat (427-849 kJ/100 g of fresh meat) is comparable to various commonly consumed sorts of red meat (Dalle Zotte 2002). KeywordsThe studies concerned with the quality of rabbit meat have focused mainly on biochemical or biophysical traits such as pH, water holding capacity, or colour (Pla et al. 1998; Hernández et al. 2000). The results on the sensory properties, e.g. appearance, texture, flavour, and others, are also 162 Vol. 28, 2010, No. 3: 161-167 Czech J. Food Sci. (Lewis et al. 2003;Lauková et al. 2006;Marcin et al. 2006;Simonová et al. 2008). While most of the studies deal with the moderating effects of the environmental, feeding, genetic, and biological (age and weight) factors as well as those of technological (pre-slaughter, transportation, processing) c...

Effect of Dietary Additives on Rabbit Performance, Carcass Traits and Some Blood Constituents under Egyptation Summer Season

“…Chrastinová et al (2010) demonstrated that probiotics increased protein and fat contents in rabbit's carcass meat. Also, Simonová et al (2010) found that meat of rabbits fed diets supplemented with probiotic had the highest fat content compared with the control group. …”

Aromatic Plants as a Source of Bioactive Compounds

“…According to Ayala [100] dietary supplementation with dried oregano improved rabbit performance, while Pogany-Simonova et al [99] reported that oregano and sage extracts improved rabbit health and carcass amino acid composition. Other researchers [97,98] found that oregano essential oil had no effect on performance parameters of rabbits and significantly increased the antioxidative capacity of raw and thermally treated carcasses during refrigerated storage.…”

Effect of purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) diet supplementation in rabbit nutrition on performance, digestibility, health and meat quality

“…Supplementation with alternative substances, such as probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes and organic acids, has been studied in rabbits, with interesting results emerging (Falcão-e-Cunha et al, 2007;Rotolo et al, 2014). However, the number of phyto-studies remains limited (Botsoglou et al, 2004;Krieg et al, 2009;Arafa et al, 2010;Simonová et al, 2010;Ayala et al, 2011;Szabóová et al, 2012;Rotolo et al, 2013). L. salicaria (LS) is a flowering plant, which is commonly known as purple loosestrife, belonging to the Lythraceae family.…”