Fatty acids composition and meat quality of Nellore and Canchim young bulls fed sugar cane-based diets with two concentrate levels

• Grant number: 06/06329-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2007
• End date: February 29, 2008
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Animal Production
• Principal Investigator: Alexandre Amstalden Moraes Sampaio
• Grantee: Alexandre Rodrigo Mendes Fernandes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias (FCAV). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Jaboticabal. Jaboticabal , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Every year, the Brazilian agribusiness it comes consolidating its important position in the economy, fruit of the technological progress, of the increment in the productivity and of the occupation of new areas. Although in 2004 a retraction of the national agriculture was observed, with decrease of 0.87% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the primary section, by virtue of fall in the prices pay to the producer, such situation doesn't reflect the average of the acting of the section in the most recent years, whose growth was of 6.54% in 2003. Among its attaches, it deserves prominence the meat complex, that represented, in 2004, about 40.6% of agricultural GDP. Before this economic conjuncture, a growing interest exists in developing strategies that provide better results in the productive efficiency and quality of the products, because the cattle raising activity tends to be more and more a managerial activity, standing back of the extensive model, represented by the extensive cattle raising, and approaching, in higer or smaller degree, depending on each case, of the total intensification.The brazilian bovine meat needs to be more competitive in relation to the one of another species, as chickens and swines, which possess rigorous quality control. Therefore, it become necessary to investigate and improve the qualitative aspects of the meat products, standing out the sensorial characteristics, with the objective of to capture the brazilian consumer and to enlarge the competition in the external market, that has been the great lever for the incentive of that activity. Being like this, the adoption of handling and feeding techniques that make possible the production of meats of better quality becomes of the largest importance to place the cattle raising in situation of equality with the great countries producing of meat.The present work will evaluate the performance of young animals of Nelore and Canchim breeds, fed with diets containing different relationships houghage:concentrate, in function of its particularities related to the ingestion of feeds, performace and fat deposition in the carcass. They will be evaluated the characteristics of the carcasses, with special emphasis to the quality of the meat, being used of evaluation techniques in real time (ultra-sound) and after the slaughter. In the meat, beyond the pertinent qualitative characteristics, the profile of the main fatty acids will be evaluated in the deposited fat, inclusively the conjugated linoleic acid that presents recognized positive effects for the human health. (AU)