Although the fatty acid composition of the diets had no effects on
animal performance and meat traits in goats, source of dietary fat in
this study significantly affected m. longissimus fatty acid composition.
Fish oil can be used as a strategy to improve the fatty acid composition
of meat, especially the amounts of long-chain n-3 fatty acids and improve
the n-6/n-3 ratio, but this may not be practical given the pressure
on world fish stocks. The substantial increase in long-chain omega-3
fatty acid in meat did not affect the sensory properties or other meat
quality aspect such as colour of meat. Given the decrease in saturated
fatty acids from feeding soybean oil this could be of practical use
given it is more readily available than fish oil.