Abstract
The present study assessed the influence of the type of the tropical pastures on lamb body weight (BW) gain and meat quality. Fifty-four lambs were allocated to three grazing pastures: (1) AG — Aruana grass (Panicum maximum cv. IZ-5); (2) PP — pigeon pea legume (Cajanus cajan cv. Anão); and (3) CS — contiguous swards, half of the paddock with AG and half with PP. After 92 days of grazing, the lambs were slaughtered. Carcasses were evaluated and the longissimus muscle was collected to determine color, lipid profile, tocopherol concentrations, and lipid oxidation. Although the pastures present differences in the characteristics of nutritional quality, the animals did not show difference in BW gain. The results show that all forage presented similar concentration of alpha-tocopherol (137 ± 14.37 mg kg−1 of fresh matter), whereas total and condensed tannin contents were greater in PP, intermediate in CS, and the lowest in AG treatment (P = 0.0001). Meat α-tocopherol content was similar among treatments (P = 0.1392), with an average concentration close to the optimal level to reduce the meat oxidation. Meat from AG treatment had 45 and 25% lower n-6/n-3 ratio than meat from PP and CS treatments, respectively. The legume increases the unsaturated fatty acids and the grass can reduce the n6/n3 ratio. The level of condensed tannin concentration did show to have important effect on meat characteristics. Both tropical pastures studied can provide a high amount of alpha-tocopherol, generating a great potential to increase the concentration of this antioxidant in lamb’s meat.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) of Brazil for the doctorate scholarship to the first author and for the financial support to the project (232963/2014-2). We are also grateful for the PhD scholarship sandwich to the first author (PDSE 88881.132015/2016-01), provided by Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) of Brazil. We also thank the Center for Research and Technology Agro-food of Aragon (CITA) and Institute of Food Science and Technology (ICTA), for the assistance of laboratory analysis.
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VSH, CHECP, JFT, and TD conceived and designed research. VSH, JFT, and NMF conducted experiments. MJ, JRBP, REFM, ENN, AGFS, ER, and VM assisted in laboratory analysis. VSH analyzed data and wrote the manuscript. VSH, CHECP, JFT, TD, and MJ have worked on corrections to the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.
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The experimental protocol involving finishing and slaughtering lambs was approved by the Ethics Committee on the Use of Animals of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (CEUA-UFRGS), Project No: 27830.
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Hampel, V.S., Poli, C.H.E.C., Joy, M. et al. Tropical grass and legume pastures may alter lamb meat physical and chemical characteristics. Trop Anim Health Prod 53, 427 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-021-02861-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-021-02861-6