Meat from wild animals in high(er) in pufa, not low.

[gerson]

Hi,

Why do people here keep saying that free roaming chickens or wild boar will have low pufa ? With no references. Studies online show the opposite.
If their diet is comparable to the wild pheasant in this study, this will certainly not be the case. Same thing for the pigs, the wild boar has a very high PUFA/SFA ratio. So wild game is not low(er) in PUFA.

The reality is that they have high pufa, and the ratios of PUFA/SFA are higher in wild game. This is one study that clearly demonstrates this: Healthy n-6/n-3 fatty acid composition from five European game meat species remains after cooking.
So why do people here say that free roaming non domesticated animals (whether fowl like chicken or boar, deer, ...) should be lower in PUFA ? It's simply not true.

"Meat PL from hare, red and roe deer contained more than 60% total PUFA (and >55% in the processed state), while samples from wild boar and pheasant showed somewhat lower PUFA content."
With that "lower" pufa content being 27% PUFA in total fat in wild boar and 37% PUFA in total fat in wild pheasant. You can check the table in the study.

 

[baron]

I presume the game feed used has added "essential oils".

 

[artist]

Great info @gerson. A lot of these things get taken for granted without a source.

 

[DonLore]

I presume the game feed used has added "essential oils".

Essential oils arent fats though

 

[Robert5493]

It appears this study only lists percentages and ratios, and not total fat in the samples. Further, it even mentions wild game as being 3% fat, whereas the leanest cuts of domestic beef are double that.
Wild game muscle is never marbled like domestic farm animals are. The "finishing" of beef is the process of feeding grains to increase this marbling further.

In wild venison fat is stored primarily in pads outside the muscles and under the skin and it feels very saturated. Most people don't like it because of the mouth feel. It doesn't readily melt in your mouth sticking to the roof, so often almost all the fat gets trimmed off.

It would be interesting to see if anyone has studied the PUFA ratios in the isolated fat, especially if it differentiated based on location.
When butchering, it is readily apparent that different locations are differently saturated.
Elk back fat for example is as hard as beef kidney tallow, and elk tallow is almost like chalk.

 

[Dean]

Ratios may be higher, but total fat is generally much lower. Omega 3 percentage should be higher too, though I'm not sure how much that matters anymore.

 

[SaltiestSardine]

I've never seen anybody claim that wild or free roaming meat is lower in PUFA as that wouldn't make much sense given their diets. I thought it was about the ratio of omega 3 to 6 and the different fatty acid profiles e.g grass fed beef has more vitamin K, but nothing worth shouting from the rooftops about(other than Emu's, animals are generally a poor source of K overall)

 

[GTW]

Tissue fat is in depot fat and membrane lipids. Membrane lipids are the primary essential function of PUFAs.
Wild animals have generally much less depot fat (not always, not all species-think bears before hibernation) but relatively constant membrane lipids in optimum ratios.