Studies in the production of Omega 3 enriched chicken meat: II

The chicken meat has high potential to become a functional food as these foods are an emerging field in food science due to their increasing popularity with health-conscious consumers. Omega 3 chicken meat has very high potential in this context. Linseed, fish and their oil has been used to enrich omega 3 in the chicken meat. Higher levels of linseed and fish produce chicken meat with low sensory attributes and high cost of production. Therefore we studied the effect of supplementation of feed formulations with low levels of linseed in 5% Enriched Feed Mix (EFM) in pellet form and its combination with 1%, 2% and 3% linseed oil (LO) in finisher diet on commercial Vencobb 400 broiler birds and compared it with supplementation of EFM and LO from day one. We report that 5% EFM with 2% LO in the finisher diet gave chicken meat with four times increase in omega 3 fatty acids (n-3 FA) and with 11.5% increase in cost of production with no adverse effect on performance of broiler birds and sensory attributes of chicken meat. Interestingly panel of seven professional panelist classified omega 3 chicken meat with greater scores for texture, tenderness and juiciness. Preference was given to the samples from the birds which were fed for 22-42vdays than the birds fed from day one in which n-3 FA were deposited more than 5 times. Also brain Docosahaxaenoic acid: Arachidonic acid ratio (DHA: AA) was estimated. DHA accumulation was found in linear proportion with ALA supplementation. Together, the results suggest that this value added omega 3 chicken meat production can be acceptable to the consumers as well as it has high potential to become functional food for making it a commercial venture