Chicken can have a role in cutting heart disease

Feeding broilers stearidonic acid-enriched soya oil is a viable way of boosting the health of consumers.

Current estimates show that people in the UK consume on average 244mg a day of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. However, as Caroline Rymer of the University of Reading pointed out at the recent WPSA Annual Meeting in Southport, this is only 54% of the recommended intake.

“Those people who don’t like oily fish consume much less, just 31%.”

There is a human health impact, as increasing intakes of these have been shown to reduce the risk of coronary heart and certain types of cancer. One viable way to boost intakes is by increasing levels in chicken sold.

Previous trials carried out by Dr Rymer successfully led to elevated levels in chicken, achieved by feeding diets to birds containing fish oil or algae. However, it led to a fishy taint in chicken, particularly when reheated.

To address this, Dr Rymer looked at an alternative strategy based on feeding soya oil from a genetically modified crop bred to contain elevated levels of stearidonic acid.

She explained that her thinking behind this approach is that feeding stearidonic acid would stimulate the production of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids in the bird itself, thus enriching the meat.

Results showed elevated levels of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. But there were still some fishy taint with reheated leg meat, but it was much less than that found when using fish oil.