Optimisation of rabbit meat sample preparation for fatty acid profile analysis

In the rabbit meat the fatty acid (FA) profile determination doesn’t follows a standardized method of meat sample preparation and results obtained could differ significantly. The effect of rabbit meat sample preparation was studied. Longissimus dorsi meat of 25 rabbits was dissected 24h post mortem and divided longitudinally into 4 parts each and prepared as follows: whole part analysed 24h post mortem (Whole-Fresh), whole part stored 1 month at -20 °C (Whole-Frozen), ground part stored 1 month at -20 °C (Ground-Frozen) and ground and freeze-dried part stored 1 month at +4 °C (FD-Refrigerated). Quite all FA were affected by the sample preparation system. Total SFA were significantly higher in the Whole-Frozen compared to the Ground–Frozen samples (33.7 vs 32.7 % total FA; P<0.01). Total PUFA were, on the contrary, significantly (P<0.001) lower in the Whole-Frozen compared to the other 3 sample preparation systems (39.8 vs 41.7 vs 41.8 vs 42.0 % total FA, for Whole-Frozen, Ground-Frozen, FD-Refrigerated and Whole-Fresh, respectively), related to a significant reduction of C20:3n-6, C20:4n-6, C22:5n-3 and DHA. The Whole-Frozen sampling resulted the worse method of meat sample preparation whereas any statistical differences were observed between Ground-Frozen and FD-Refrigerated meat preparations.