• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.33 no.9
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• pp.1537-1543
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of dietary linseed oil and canola oil on the deposition n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid in pork. Twelve pigs weighing 50 kg were offered one of four diets based on corn and soybean meal and containing tallow, linseed oil, canola oil or mixed oil (linseed oil plus canola oil). The pigs were slaughtered at approximately 110 kg of their market live weight. Linseed oil, canola oil or mixed oil did not affect any of the three indicators of growth performance-body weight gain, feed intake and feed efficiency. Saturated fatty acid content of plasma was the highest in tallow oil group, while the plasma proportion of saturated fatty acid was lowered in linseed oil, canola oil and mixed oil group from 11.84% to 16.54% than tallow group (p<0.05). The plasma n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid was not detected at all in the tallow-fed pigs, while the plasma proportion of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid were higher in linseed oil, canola oil and mixed oil from 4.68% to 12.83% than tallow group (p<0.05). All three lipid supplements containing n-3 poly-unsaturated fatty acid increased the content of pork belly $\alpha$-linolenic acid (18:3n-3) by 9.43% relative to the tallow values (p<0.05). Feeding linseed oil or canola oil increased the n-3 : n-6 ratio in pork belly to 0.68, and increased the polyunsaturated fatty acid : saturated fatty acid ratio to 0.70 (p<0.05). This result showed that feeding linseed oil and canola oil can produce novel functional pork enriched in n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid.