Healthy Meats

Key scientists:

Several health benefits have been identified from consuming diets rich in omega 3 fatty acids. The aim of the unit is to develop meats that are naturally enriched in omega 3 fats.

Chicken
Chicken meat is extremely popular and is considered healthy but is currently low in omega 3 fats. Feeding fish oil to chickens increases the omega 3 content but taints the meat with fishy flavours. Our experiments have shown that it is possible to increase the level of omega 3 fats in chicken meat by varying the type of vegetable oil added to the broiler feeds. New studies are under way to determine the flavour characteristics and to evaluate the effect of these diets on egg fatty acid composition.

Fish
Increasingly, the fish needs of Australia are being met by aquaculture. Currently much of the protein and fat need of farmed fish is met from wild catch fish meal which is unsustainable. Fish are generally poor converters of plant oils to the long chain omega 3 fatty acids but we are exploring mechanisms to increase this conversion. The species of special focus have been kingfish and barramundi.

Please contact Foodplus if you are interested in an honours or postgraduate student project in this area of research.