Finishing Cinta Senese pigs at pasture: fatty acids composition of cured lard

Abstract

Extensive farming system increasingly involves swine husbandry based primarily on wood pasture; this practice could cause problems linked with woods exploitation and needs substantial skills about sustainable woods management. For many years, grass pasture represented a valid option in Italian and foreign regions. The utilisation of grass could represent a valid alternative to achieve good performances in finishing pigs with effects on fatty acids composition. For these reasons we tried to evaluate the effects of grazing on fatty acids (FA) composition and malonaldehyde (MDA) content of cured lard, a typical Tuscan product. 16 Cinta Senese finishing pigs were divided into two groups: ‘Concentrate’ (C) fed a common diet utilised in the farm (2.6 kg/head/d) and ‘Pasture’ (P) fed on grass pasture (lucerne, oat, lolium and clover) with a daily integration of 1.4 kg/head of the same concentrate used by ‘C’. Slaughtering happened at 150 kg of live weight. FA and MDA content were determined on lard cured for 6 months, according to dry seasoning technique. FA composition did not show significant differences between the two groups revealing a substantial homogeneity in fatty acids composition. More in detail linolenic acid, that is particularly influenced by the diet, did not show higher values in the group fed pasture (0.59 vs. 0.64 respectively for C and P). MDA content was similar in the two groups (1.46 vs. 1.53 mg/kg) with higher values than those found in other investigations conducted on Cinta Senese pigs.