Natural dietary antioxidant alternatives to improve oxidative stability of stored chicken meat

LUNA, A.; PIOTRKOWSKI, B.; GALLEANO, M.; LABAQUE, M. C.; MARIN, R. H .

Congreso; 2018 PSA Latin American Poultry Scientific Conference; 2018

Lipidoxidation is the main cause of nutritional and organoleptic deterioration ofbird?s meat and eggs during storage. This process originates compounds responsiblefor unpleasant odours, reduces the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids,vitamins and pigments, decreases the acceptability on consumers and generatescompounds that may present toxicity. Furthermore, some dietary syntheticantioxidants have been restricted or banned in many countries. In this regard,phytogenic products and/or essential oils main components have been suggestedas non-traditional alternatives in broiler diets to improve growth performance,products quality and even their welfare. Thymol (THY), a main component oforegano generally recognized as safe status (FDA, USA), has been proved as aneffective antimicrobial and antioxidant compound with similar activity to buthylatedhidroxytoluene (BHT), a synthetic antioxidant widely used in poultry industry.On the other hand, tocopherol (TOC) has also proved antioxidant activity andhas shown synergistic antioxidant activity when combined with ascorbylpalmitate (AP). Herein, we evaluated whether broiler diet supplementation withTHY, a formulation mix with TOC and AP (1:1), and a mixture of THY:TOC:AP(1:0.5:0.5, respectively) have potential to prevent meat oxidation. One daymale broiler chicks with similar BW were randomly assigned to 1 of 5 dietarygroups (4 replicates of 32 birds each) as follows: Basal (no feed supplements);BHT (1.33 mmol BHT/kg feed); TOCAP (0.67 mmol TOC+0.67 mmol AP/kg feed); THY(1.33 mmol THY/kg feed); and THY-TOCAP (0.67 mmol of THY+0.67 mmol of a mix 1:1of TOCAP). Birds were slaughtered at day 42 and carcases placed at 4° C. Thighsamples were taken at 0, 5 and 10 days of storage. MDA determined byfluorescence HPLC was used to assess oxidative deterioration. Repeated measureANOVAs and Fisher tests were used to detect differencesat P<0.05. MDA content in Basal thigh samples were increased at 5 and 10days of storage compared to thighs from their respective supplemented groups (P=0.004).No differences in thigh oxidative deterioration were found between the supplementedgroups. Results highlight the need of using a dietary antioxidant in order toprotect carcass meat against oxidative deterioration when stored. The proposednatural antioxidant alternatives were similarly effective in delaying oxidativedamage as BHT. Thus, THY itself or in combination with TOCAP can be used as naturalantioxidant alternatives for broiler production.