Campus Units
Animal Science
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
2015
Journal or Book Title
Journal of Clinical Medicine
Volume
4
Issue
12
First Page
1999
Last Page
2011
DOI
10.3390/jcm4121956
Abstract
Pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world, but typical feeding practices give it a high omega-6 (n-6) to omega-3 (n-3) fatty acid ratio and make it a poor source of n-3 fatty acids. Feeding pigs n-3 fatty acids can increase their contents in pork, and in countries where label claims are permitted, claims can be met with limited feeding of n-3 fatty acid enrich feedstuffs, provided contributions of both fat and muscle are included in pork servings. Pork enriched with n-3 fatty acids is, however, not widely available. Producing and marketing n-3 fatty acid enriched pork requires regulatory approval, development costs, quality control costs, may increase production costs, and enriched pork has to be tracked to retail and sold for a premium. Mandatory labelling of the n-6/n-3 ratio and the n-3 fatty acid content of pork may help drive production of n-3 fatty acid enriched pork, and open the door to population-based disease prevention polices (i.e., food tax to provide incentives to improve production practices). A shift from the status-quo, however, will require stronger signals along the value chain indicating production of n-3 fatty acid enriched pork is an industry priority.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright Owner
The Authors
Copyright Date
2015
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Dugan, Michael E. R.; Vahmani, Payam; Turner, Tyler D.; Mapiye, Cletos; Juárez, Manuel; Prieto, Nuria; Beaulieu, Angela D.; Zijlstra, Ruurd T.; Patience, John F.; and Aalhus, Jennifer L., "Pork as a Source of Omega-3 (n-3) Fatty Acids" (2015). Animal Science Publications. 725.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ans_pubs/725
Comments
This article is published as Dugan, Michael ER, Payam Vahmani, Tyler D. Turner, Cletos Mapiye, Manuel Juárez, Nuria Prieto, Angela D. Beaulieu, Ruurd T. Zijlstra, John F. Patience, and Jennifer L. Aalhus. "Pork as a source of omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids." Journal of Clinical Medicine 4, no. 12 (2015): 1999-2011. doi: 10.3390/jcm4121956.