Meat Science

MEAT FATS

• Meat fats contain ample amount of essential fatty acids (EFA) and the nutritional demand of EFA human beings is easily met by intramuscular fat itself.
• The calorific value of fat in meat is attributed to fatty acids in triglycerides.
• The number of calories from lean meat is frequently less than those derived from equal weights of many other foods.
• In fact, the calorific value of particular meat depends on the amount of fat in the meat cuts.
• The most important fatty acid in meat fat is oleic acid (mono unsaturated FA) followed by palmitic and stearic acids (saturated FA).
• The EFA in human diets are linoleic, linolenic, and arachidonic acids.
• Pork and organ meats are relatively good sources of linoleic and linolenic acids.
• It may be noted that excess dietary linoleic acid is converted to arachidonic acid in human body to meet its demand.
• The phospholipids are essential components of the cell wall as well as mitochondria and play a vital role in cellular metabolism.
• Meat fat always contains some quantity of cholesterol and blood cholesterol level increases after ingestion of cholesterol in food.
• However, dietary and serum cholesterol are not directly related .
• Organ meats have remarkable high cholesterol content as compared to skeletal meat.