Evaluation of lipid composition and fatty acid content of minced beef

Abstract

Meat and meat products quality depends on content and composition of the main meat components, proteins, lipids, minerals and water. In this paper we investigated the kinetics of lipid extraction and lipids and fatty acid composition of minced beef from Leskovac region. Lipids fractions were determined by HPLC. Free fatty acids content in the tested samples ranged from 8.7% to 52.6%, monoacylglycerols ranged from 0.4 to 2.6%, and diacylglycerols from 0.7 to 3.0%, while the content of triacylglycerols was the highest and ranged from 36.9% to 89.6%. The content of fatty acids in acylglycerols was determined by GC. Oleic, palmitic and stearic fatty acid were present in the highest content and ranged from 37.1% to 41.8%, 23.5 to 30.4% and 15.7% to 19.0%, respectively. Some quantities of myristic, pentadecanoic, palmitoleic, margaric, linoleic and phtalic acid were detected in investigated samples too. Based on statistic analysis, samples were classi ed in two groups, one with high oleic acid content, associated with low palmitoleic acid content and the second one with high stearic acid content associated with low palmitic acid content. Based on t-test, content of oleic, stearic and linoleic acid of 39.59% ± 1.86%, 17.69% ± 1.28% and 2.33% ± 1.03%, respectively, can be used for evaluating the lipid composition of the minced beef.