The Effect of Pomegranate Peel Powder Supplementation on the Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Goat Kids’ Meat

• Hilbeen Muhsin Mohammed1; Jamal S. Khurshid2; Gulizar Issa Ameen1*; Nihayat Haji Sulaiman1; Vahel Jaladet Taha1; Redeer Khaleel Saadullah1; Frank Vriesekoop3

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The current study was carried out to examine how dietary supplementation with pomegranate peel powder (PGPP), a natural antioxidant, affected the postmortem lipid oxidation, free fatty acids, cooking loss, drip loss, and myoglobin content of goat meat during refrigerated storage. TBARS and free fatty acids were assessed on days 1, 4, and 7, whereas myoglobin content, cooking loss, and drip loss were evaluated using samples collected on day 1. Twelve weaned male goat kids (weighing 15±0.5 kg) were housed in individual pens, randomly assigned into three treatment groups, and fed diets containing 0, 20, or 40 g•kg−1 DM of pomegranate peel powder, respectively. After 12 weeks of fattening, all goat kids were slaughtered and the Biceps femoris (BF) muscles were removed for analysis. Pomegranate peel powder (PGPP) was found to have no significant effect on meat myoglobin (P > 0.05), muscle lipid oxidation (P = 0.545), or drip loss (P > 0.05) when added to the animal diets. However, meat samples from animals fed diets containing 4% PGPP had numerically higher myoglobin content and drip loss values. Furthermore, during the storage period, a significant (P < 0.001) increase was found in free fatty acids and TBARS in meat samples. Dietary PGPP supplementation significantly affected cooking loss, with the highest value observed in meat samples from animals fed diets containing 4% PGPP (37.7%), followed by diets containing 2% PGPP (32.2%) and control (30.5%). The treatment × storage-period interaction for TBARS was significant (P = 0.037), indicating that the response to PGPP differed across storage periods. Overall, PGPP supplementation did not significantly affect the overall treatment means of FFA or TBARS, whereas storage period significantly increased both FFA and TBARS, and dietary PGPP significantly affected cooking loss.

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