Marta del Puerto¹, Alejandra Terevinto¹, Ali Saadoun², Roberto Olivero¹, M. Cristina Cabrera^{1, 2,}

We studied the effects of different dietary starch sources fed to poultry on the quality attributes and oxidative damage in fresh and aged chicken pectoralis muscle. In a corn-soya diet, 300 g.kg^-1 of the starch from ground corn was replaced by starch from broken corn, ground sorghum or pure starch, and fed for 11 days prior to slaughter to male broilers. In pectoralis muscle, pH rate, colour, drip loss, glycogen and lactate were measured at 10, 45, 90 minutes and 24 hours postmortem. Protein, lipid oxidation and haem iron were measured in fresh and aged meat. Sorghum starch caused a lower initial pH, while broken corn and pure starch gave higher pH in the pectoralis muscle. Ground corn and pure starch sources showed the lowest pH (45 min postmortem) indicating faster decline curves. Ground sorghum produced a lower level of residual glycogen in muscle and a lower rate of protein oxidation while the highest glycogen and a higher protein oxidation rate was observed with pure starch Type of starch sources in diet received prior to slaughter affect the quality parameters in poultry meat. Particularly, ground sorghum improved meat quality whereas pure starch provoked a higher protein oxidation.

pectoralis, poultry, starch sources, meat quality, lipid and protein oxidation