The monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA)contributed to about 30% of total fatty acids and among them oleic
acid (C18:1n9c) followed by palmitoleic acid (C16:1) were the major
ones. Rawdah et al. (1994) also reported that MUFA in camel meat
account for almost one-third of the total fatty acids and are
dominated by oleic acid followed by palmitoleic acid. Content of
total saturated fatty acid (SFA) and unsaturated fatty acids were
58.46 and 41.5 mg/100 g, respectively, indicating that camel meat
lipids were dominated by saturated fatty acid with considerably high
amounts of unsaturated fatty acids. Among the unsaturated fatty acid,
camel meat lipid contain 29.23 mg/100 g of mono-unsaturated fatty
acids (MUFA) and 12.23 mg/100 g of poly-unsaturated fatty acids
(PUFA). High amount of unsaturated fatty acids (41.54 mg/100 g)
could play a major role in making the lipids more susceptible to lipid
oxidation. The dominant PUFA in the camel meat lipid was linoleic
acid (Cis) (C18:2n6c). Kadim et al. (2013) also reported that the main
polyunsaturated fatty acids in the muscles were linoleic acid
(C18:2n6c). This finding further corroborates with those reported
by Rawdah et al. (1994). These unsaturated fatty acids in camel meat
lipids underwent oxidation during the refrigerated storage for 9 days.
This was evidenced by the decrease in total unsaturated fatty acids
from 41.54 to 39.89 mg/100 g and PUFA from 12.23 to 9.75 mg/100 g
on day 9 of storage. This was in agreement with the high formation of
PV and TBARS in the camel meat on day 9 of storage (Fig.1). Decrease
in PUFA was coincidental with an increase in saturated fatty acids at
the end of refrigerated storage. When comparing fatty acids between
camel meat lipids at day 0 and day 9, there was a noticeable decrease
in some of the PUFA especially C18:2n6, C18:3n6, C18:3n3 and
C20:4n6. PUFA reduction was due to oxidative and hydrolytic
reactions that occurred during the storage.