Influence of sex on meat quality of Celta pig breed

Abstract

The aim of this work was to study the effect of sex on the chemical composition, color parameters and textural analysis of meat of Celta pig breed. For this purpose, 27 pigs (16 castrated barrows and 11 gilts) were used. Animals were fed ad libitum with a commercial concentrate suited to their nutritional needs and they were slaughtered when they reached a live weight of 102.49±8.23 and 100.72±9.74 kg (P>0.05) for barrows and gilts, respectively. The muscle longissimus dorsi (LD) was extracted from each carcass, between the fourth and the tenth rib. For the investigation of the effect of sex on the different parameters of quality studied, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed for all variables, using the SPSS 21.0 software package for Windows. Color parameters were not significantly affected by gender, although meat from barrows was darker. On the other hand, the pH values did not display significant (P>0.05) differences between sexes with a mean value of 5.94. Regarding chemical composition, the highest moisture and protein contents were observed in barrow samples, whereas the highest intramuscular fat percentages were found in gilts samples. There were no significant differences in cooking loss between sexes with mean values of 15.7%. Finally, no significant differences (P>0.05) between genders on textural parameters measured by WB and TPA test were found.