Organic Bilberry pomace in rabbit nutrition: effect on meat quality and fatty acid profile

To evaluate the effect of Bilberry pomace (BP) diet supplementation on rabbit meat quality, 144 Grimaud weaned rabbits were divided into 4 groups of 36 animals and fed ad libitum with a basal diet (BP0, 177g CP and 17.9 MJ/kg GE) tested against three assay diets developed by substituting 50, 100 and 150 g/kg of the BP0 diet with BP (BP5, BP10 and BP15, respectively). At 84 days of age, 12 rabbits per diet were chosen and slaughtered without fasting. Proximate composition, colour, cooking losses and fatty acid (FA) profile of Longissimus Dorsi(LD) muscle were evaluated. Meat lipid oxidation was studied at 1, 4 and 7 days of refrigerated storage and at 30 and 60 days of frozen storage, by Thiobarbituric Acid-Reactive Substances (TBARS) assay. All data were analyzed by One-way ANOVA and differences of means by Duncan’s test. Significance was set at P≤0.05. Chemical composition and meat quality traits were not affected by BP supplementation in diet with the exception of redness for BP10 group which reported the lowest (P=0.001) value (-0.41). Regarding FA profile, α linolenic acid (C18:3n3) content significantly (P<0.001) increased with the increase of BP inclusion level (from 2.16% to 8.79%). Dietary treatment significantly (P=0.02) affected TBARS values of refrigerated meat with the highest value reported for BP15 group. No significant effects were reported for frozen meat. In conclusion, the results suggest that BP supplementation improve the fatty acid profile of rabbit meat with a negative effect reported in LD oxidation for BP supplementation level higher than 10 %.