Effect of diet on the fatty acid composition of adipose and muscular tissue in Iberian pigs

The fatty acid composition of total, apolar and polar lipid fractions from adipose and muscular tissues of Iberian pigs was determined. Animals were fed on diets of pasture and acorns (montanera), acorns and cereals (recebo) or cereals (cebo). The principal fatty acids in the total and apolar lipid fractions from muscular tissue were C-18:1 (39-51%), C-16:0 (21-27%), C-18:0 (11-21%), C-18:2 (3-7%) and C-18:3 (1.7-5.4%). Significant differences were observed only in some cases. In the total lipid fraction from the muscular tissue significant differences (p less than or equal to 0.05) were found between all three batches for the C-16:1 fatty acid and between the cebo batch and the others for both C-18:1 and C-18:0. In total lipids from the adipose tissue, significant differences were found for both C-16:1 and C-18:3 between all three batches, and for C-16:1 and C-18:1 differences were observed only between the montanera batch and the others. The differences between batches in the apolar and polar fractions were smaller than those for total lipids. A 100% partition among the three different diets studied was not obtained when a stepwise discriminant analysis was applied.