Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2017
Enriching chicken meat with the very long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLC n-3 PUFA) 20:5 (EPA) and 22:6 (DHA) is a possible means of increasing the human consumption of these essential fatty acids as current levels of intake of these fatty acids are extremely low. However, a potential drawback of increasing the VLC n-3 PUFA content of chicken meat is that the oxidative stability of the meat is reduced. Chicken meat is enriched with VLC n-3 PUFA by the addition of fish oil to the chickens’ diet. It is possible that using alternative dietary sources of VLC n-3 PUFA may increase the oxidative stability of the meat (Mooney et al., 1998). The objective of this experiment was to determine what the source of VLC n-3 PUFA in broilers’ diets had on the oxidative stability of their edible tissues.