Seaweed Inclusion in Finishing Lamb Diet Promotes Changes in Micronutrient Content and Flavour-Related Compounds of Raw Meat and Dry-Cured Leg (Fenalår)

Innovative feeding strategies tend to improve the quality properties of raw material and dry-cured products. In the present study, Norwegian White female lambs (n = 24) were finished during 35 days on three different diets: control (CD), control supplemented with seaweed (5% DM) (SD), and pasture (PD). The quality of raw meat (Semimembranosus + Adductor) and deboned dry-cured lamb leg (fenalår; n = 24) was studied. The heme, SFA, MUFA, and PUFA content in raw meat was not affected with finishing diet. The SD significantly increased the selenium, iodine, and arsenic content in raw meat and in the dry-cured leg the iodine and arsenic. The dry-cured leg from SD-lamb had the highest amount of iodine with 130 µg I/100 g which corresponds to 60% of Adequate Intake. Aldehydes, ketones, and esters in raw meat and dry-cured lamb leg were significantly affected by finishing diet; CD showed increased esters in raw meat and aldehydes in the dry-cured leg compared to SD and PD. The significantly higher content of simple sugars, mannose being the most dominant, was found in the dry-cured leg from SD-lamb compared to CD and PD. Finishing diets had no effect on the taste profile of dry-cured lamb leg. This study showed the potential of seaweed in iodine biofortification of lamb meat and dry-cured products. Iodine-rich meat products should reduce iodine-deficiency among humans.

Change in Norwegian consumer attitudes towards piglet castration: increased emphasis on animal welfare

Background

Male piglets are surgically castrated at a young age primarily to prevent pork meat from being tainted with boar taint, an offensive taste and odor that can be present in uncastrated male pigs. The practice of surgical castration is considered to be both stressful and painful for the piglets, and is therefore under scrutiny due to animal welfare concerns. Rearing of intact males or vaccination against boar taint (immunocastration) are two potential alternatives to surgical castration, but in order to successfully implement either of these alternatives, consumer acceptance of the different methods must be taken into consideration as it will be central for future sales of pork products. A consumer survey mapping Norwegian consumers’ attitudes toward piglet castration was conducted to explore whether the consumers’ position regarding castration has changed since an almost identical study was completed in 2008.

Results

The internet-based survey found that Norwegian consumers are comfortable with the current practice of surgical castration with anesthesia, but also that they are open to the alternative method of vaccination against boar taint. When provided additional information stating that vaccination against boar taint may not be able to reduce boar taint to the levels that castration with anesthesia does, consumer skepticism towards vaccination increased. When evaluating castration methods, animal welfare was the most important influencing factor. Since the original survey from 2008, animal welfare was also the single factor that has increased the most among a set of assessment criteria when purchasing pork products.

Conclusion

Norwegian consumers regard animal welfare as an important factor both when purchasing pork products and when evaluating different methods of castration, and animal welfare as a factor has increased in importance since the initial survey in 2008. Although the current practice of castration using local anesthesia is still widely accepted among consumers, the acceptance of today’s method has declined since the original survey in 2008.

Computed tomography for quantitative determination of sodium chloride in ground pork and dry-cured hams

Seventy-five ground meat and fat samples of pork with varying composition of sodium chloride (0% to 16%), fat (1% to 82%), protein (1% to 46%), and water (13% to 76%) were scanned by X-ray computed tomography (CT) at 110 kV. The dependency of CT value on chemical composition and the linear relationships between sodium chloride (NaCl) and CT value were modeled. When all ground samples were used for modeling and no information of chemical composition was included in the model, the prediction error for NaCl was 2.8%. Adding information on fat or protein content to the model reduced the error to 1.6%. A minimal prediction error of 0.2% for NaCl was found when the variation in chemical composition was strongly reduced. In addition, 22 samples of dry-cured ham lean and fat tissues at different processing stages were CT scanned; their chemical compositions were 0% to 14% NaCl, 1% to 85% fat, 5% to 33% protein, and 7% to 76% water. The NaCl content in dry-cured ham samples was modeled with prediction errors of 0.6% to 2.1%, depending on which chemical component was included in the models. In general, predictions were improved if either the range of concentrations was reduced or information of chemical composition was included in the models. Important sources of error in the models were the reproduction error for ground samples, and for ham samples the analytical errors in determining the chemical composition.