The influence of olive leaves supplementation on feed digestibility, growth performance of pigs and pork
meat quality was investigated. Pigs fed diets with olive leaves at 5% (OL5) and 10% (OL10) levels had
lower daily weight gain (DG) and daily feed intake (DFI) than pigs fed a conventional diet (OL0) but differences
were not observed between groups fed with the different quantities of leaves. Additionally, pigs
fed diets with leaves had the worst feed:gain ratio and showed a decrease in overall backfat. Chops from
pigs fed the leaf diets had lower peroxide (PV) and conjugated diene (CD) contents than chops from pigs
fed conventional diets. Moreover, chops from pigs fed with the higher quantity of leaves also showed a
lower drip loss. After a storage period of 8 days at 4 C, meat obtained from both OL5 and OL10 animals
also differed (P < 0.05) in PV and %CD values from those fed a conventional diet. Since the fatty acid composition
of the longissimus muscles was not different, differences in oxidative stability could only be
explained by the significantly higher a-tocopherol concentration in intramuscular fat and backfat in pigs
fed with olive leaf diets.