Quality of pig adipose tissue: relationship between solid fat content and lipid composition

The dependence of solid fat content at 20 degrees C of adipose tissues on their fatty acid and triacylglycerol compositions was studied on lipids extracted from tissues from 166 pigs. The solid fat content (SFC20) was 20% on average but varied widely (9-35%). The SFC20 variability was closely related to the proportions of disaturated triacylglycerols and more specifically to palmitoyl-stearoyl-oleoyl-glycerol (R-2,0.92). The SFC20 variability was also related to the proportions of the saturated fatty acids, palmitic and stearic acids (R-2 = 0.94). The part of the variance of SFC20 explained by the proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids was lower (R-2 = 0.48). The iodine value showed a high correlation with SFC20 (R-2 = 0.81) but carcass lean content was a poor indicator of the solid fat content of adipose tissues (R-2 = 0.06). (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.