The role of rabbit meat as functional food.

Meat and its derivatives may be considered functional foods to the extent that they contain numerous compounds thought to be functional. Regular rabbit meat consumption could provide consumers with bioactive compounds, because rabbit diet manipulation is very effective in increasing levels of PUFA, EPA, DHA, CLA, branched chain FA, vitamin E, selenium, and the lowering the n-6/n-3 ratio that plays a key role in controlling CVD and other chronic diseases. Although rabbit meat offers excellent nutritional and dietetic properties in itself (low cholesterol and sodium contents, high levels of protein with essential amino acids, high levels of PUFA and n-3 FA), its dietary fortification with bioactive compounds can be achieved in different ways to obtain meat considered as healthier or functional: 1. by feeding rabbits with diets supplemented with high PUFA or long chain n-3 FA content (e.g. linseed –whole or oil–and fish oil) the meat is enriched with essential FA and bioactive form of n-3 FA, since the muscle FA profile linearly respond to that of the feed; 2. a maximum of 4% linseed level in rabbits diet could be considered adequate to achieve both the enrichment of n-3 FA and maintain good product quality; 3. in order to improve oxidative stability of rabbit meat, the use of antioxidants is needed, and 200 mg α-tocopheryl acetate/kg feed protect meat from oxidation extending its shelf life, and provides high levels of vitamin E in meat; 4. through dietary fortification with 0.5% CLA, the CLA content in rabbit meat represents an opportunity to provide a value-added healthy meat product for human consumption; 5. supra-nutritional levels of selenium (0.5 mg/kg diet) are able to produce selenium-fortified rabbit meat which could contribute significantly to the selenium intake of humans; 6. high digestible fibre diets can enrich the rabbit meat with biologically significant branched-chain FA. In the review an outline is given for several feeding strategies adopted to obtain rabbit meat with improved nutritional and dietetic properties and to offer an overview of the studies performed on the topic to date.