Nutritional Quality of Dried Pig Placenta

Nutrients and hormone levels of dried pig placenta were studied. Placentas were freeze-dried (FD), oven-dried at 60 (OD-60), and 90$^{\circ}C$ (OD-90) and then crushed by a blender into small pieces. FD and OD-60 pig placenta had a higher moisture content than did OD-90, with no difference between FD and OD-60. There were no large differences in compositions of crude protein, crude fat, and crude ash of dried placenta among the treatments and the contents of K, Fe, and ${\alpha}$-tocopherol were highest in FD (p<0.05). Glutamine and glycine were the most abundant amino acids in all dried placenta and tyrosine was highly retained in FD placenta, compared with OD (p<0.05). Estradiol was the major sex hormone, followed by progesterone and testosterone in all dried placentas. Antibiotics including amoxicillin, sulfamethazine, tylosin, and chlorotetracyclin were not detected from the pig placentas tested. These results demonstrate that placenta is a good biomaterial with high nutritional quality, and that freeze drying is superior to oven drying for processing pig placenta.