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| Fatty Acid Profiles of Meat from Pasturing and Barn-Fed Sheep in Inner Mongolia, China |
| LIU Mengjing, GUO Jun, YAN Xinlei, SUN Haizhou |
| 1.College of Food Science and Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China; 2.Institute of Animal Nutrition and Feed, Inner Mongolia Academy of Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Sciences, Hohhot 010031, China |
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Abstract Inner Mongolia is a major producer of meat from natural pasture-grazed cattle and sheep, and large-scale barn feeding is burgeoning in the farming area and the herding forbidden-banned area. However, a systematic evaluation of the fatty acid characteristics of meat from sheep under different feeding systems is still lacking in the literature. A total of 109 meat samples from pasturing sheep and 30 meat samples from barn-fed sheep were collected from 7 banners/counties in the three typical pastoral areas and agro-pastoral areas of northeast, east-central and west Inner Mongolia, and their fatty acid compositions were determined by gas chromatography (GC), and the data obtained were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA) and descriptive statistics. Results indicated that grazing sheep meat samples from the Hulunbuir and Xilingol grassland were gathered into one group, while barn-fed sheep meat samples from Bayannur farming region into another group. Both grazing and barn-fed sheep meat from each of the three regions were not separable by banners/counties or breeds. Most fatty acids in Biceps femoris were significantly different from those in tail fat, while the characteristic fatty acids in grazing sheep meat were consistent with those in barn-fed sheep meat. The fatty acids of tail fat provided better separation of the two feeding patterns than did those of Biceps femoris. The contents of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFAs), α-C18:3 n-3 (α-linolenic acid), C14:1 and C14:0 in grazing sheep meat were significantly higher than those in barn-fed sheep meat. The content of n-3 PUFAs in Biceps femoris and tail fat increased by 5.0 and 3.2 times, and the content of α-linolenic acid increased by 3.6 and 2.9 times, respectively. On the other hand, barn-fed sheep meat contained significantly more n-6 PUFAs, trans fatty acids, C18:2 n-6c and C18:1 n-9t than did grazing sheep meat.
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2020, Vol. 34 
