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Effect of Dietary Safflower Oil or Hydrogenated Coconut Oil on Heart, Liver and Adipose Tissue Fatty Acid Levels and Physical Carcass Measurements of Pigs Fed a Fat-Free Diet

Cornell University, Ithaca, New York^{2, 3,}

Abstract

The fatty acid composition of the adipose tissue, liver and heart from pigs fed fat-free diets or diets containing 3% hydrogenated coconut oil (HCO) or levels of safflower oil (SO) ranging from 0% to 3.0% from weaning at 10 kg. bodyweight to 85 kg. was determined and the effects of these diets on physical carcass measurements were observed. No significant treatment differences were observed in any of the physical carcass measurements, including backfat thickness, carcass length and cross-sectional area of the l. dorsi. However, highly significant treatment differences were observed in the tissue fatty acid constituents. The adipose tissue was higher in the saturated fatty acids and the monoenoic acids than were the liver and the heart. Liver and heart had considerably greater quantities of the C₁₈–C₂₀ polyunsaturated fatty acids than did adipose tissue. The concentrations of the C_18:2 fatty acids in all tissues investigated were directly proportional to the dietary levels, while the same generalization did not hold for the C_20:4 acid. Whereas the triene:tetraene ratios were generally higher in the livers and hearts from pigs fed fat-free or HCO diets than in those of pigs fed graded levels of SO, no such trends were observed for the adipose tissue. Fatty acid analysis of the backfat is, therefore, an insensitive index of dietary linoleic acid adequacy. Based on calculations of the final C_18:2 acid content of the entire body adipose tissue of pigs fed the fat-free diet, it is concluded that considerable net synthesis of C_18:2 acid must have occurred.

¹ Present address: Department of Animal Science, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

² Department of Animal Science.

³ The authors gratefully acknowledge John Dunn and George Kiger for feeding and care of the experimental animals and Jack Scherer and Robert White for slaughter and carcass measurements.