Comparative lipid composition of porcine muscles at different anatomical locations

The influence of anatomical location on the intramuscular lipids was studied in Large White pigs. The amount of total, neutral and polar lipids and the composition of fatty acids of the above three fractions were determined for Longissimus dorsi (LD) at two points and Transversus abdominis (TA) and Biceps femoris (BF) taken from the two half carcasses of an animal. The symmetrical samples from the same animal had identical intramuscular lipid characteristics. The three muscles did not show significant differences in their total (2·8 to 2·4g/100g) and neutral (2·1 to 1·4g/100g) lipid contents. The amount of polar lipids was characteristic of every muscle (0·65 g, 0·84 g and 0·97 g per 100 g, respectively, in LD, BF and TA). The fatty acid composition of neutral lipids was influenced by the type of muscle. Polar lipid had similar fatty acid composition in the three muscles. The intramuscular lipids contained appreciable amounts of essential fatty acids of the family n-6; interestingly, a part of which (25% of EFA) was the long chain fatty acid (C20 and C22) located in the polar lipids.