Effect of diet on the fatty acid composition of intramuscular and intermuscular fat in Iberian pig cured hams

The fatty acid composition of total, apolar and polar lipid fractions from intra- and intermuscular fat of Iberian pig cured hams was determined. Animals were fed with diets of pasture and acorns (montanera), acorns and cereals (recebo) or cereals (cebo). The major fatty acids from the total and apolar lipid fraction of Iberian pig cured ham muscular tissue were C-18:1 (45-54%), C-16:0 (22-26%) and C-18:1 (10-13%). The same fatty acids were the major components in the total and apolar lipids from intermuscular fat of Iberian pig cured hams, with values ranging from 44 to 53% for C-18:1, from 21 to 27% for C-16:0 and from 10 to 14% for C-18:0. In the total lipid fraction from intramuscular fat significant differences (p less than or equal to 0.05) were found between all three batches in the composition of C-18:1 and C-18:2, and between montanera and the other two batches in the fatty acids C-14:0 and C-16:0. For intermuscular fat, significant differences (p less than or equal to 0.05) were observed between all three batches for the fatty acids C-14:0, C-16:0, C-18:1, C-18:2, and C-18:3. Although significant differences in the composition of some fatty acids of the total lipid fraction from intra- and intermuscular fat were due to the feeding system, a 100% partition among the three different diets was not obtained when stepwise discriminant analysis was applied. The results were not improved when the apolar lipid fraction was analysed.