Comprehensive estimation of overfeeding influence on goose meat quality

1. The aim of this research was to explore the influence of overfeeding on goose meat quality in foie gras production. Forty Tianfu Meat Geese were averagely separated into normal-feeding group (control group) and overfeeding group (force-feeding group), randomly. After overfeeding, the breast muscle and leg muscle were collected, and then the determinations of meat quality variables were performed. The cluster analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square-discriminate analysis (PL-SDA) were performed to comprehensively estimate the influence of overfeeding on goose meat quality.2. Overfeeding increased the weights of breast muscle and leg muscle (p < 0.05), increased L*, a* and b* values of breast muscle and leg muscle (p < 0.05), increased the hardness values of breast muscle and leg muscle (p < 0.05), decreased the cooking loss of breast muscle (p < 0.05). In nutritional variables, overfeeding increased the contents of crude fat of breast muscle and leg muscle (p < 0.05). In breast muscle, overfeeding increased the contents of Ala, Tyr, Lys and Val, and decreased the contents of Arg and Phe (p < 0.05); in leg muscle, overfeeding decreased the contents of Asp, Glu, Ser, Ala, Tyr, Val, Phe, Ile and Leu, and increased the contents of Arg, His and Lys (p < 0.05). In fatty acids composition, the contents of C14:0, C16:1, C16:0, C18:2n6c, C18:1n9c, C18:0 and C20:0 of breast muscle significantly increased after overfeeding (p < 0.05). PCA and PLS-DA suggested that overfeeding had significant influence on the meat quality of the breast muscle and leg muscle.3. In conclusion, overfeeding improved the meat quality of overfed geese.