Lipid and amino acid profiles and physico-chemical characteristics of meat from Philippine white mallard (Anas boschas L.) and pekin (Anas platyrhynchos L.) ducks

The Philippine White Mallard duck was compared with Pekin duck for potential meat production. A total of 50 ducklings were randomly assigned to five pens per treatment after one month of brooding. Each pen containing five ducks was considered as replicate. The ducks were raised until 12 weeks of age and slaughtered at the end of the growing period. Meat from both breeds was analyzed. The data were subjected to the Independent-Sample T-test, SPSS software version 20. Results showed that post-mortem pH (0, 20 minutes, 50 minutes, 1 hour and 20 minutes, 1 hour and 50 minutes, and 24 hours) did not differ significantly (P0.05 between breeds. However, Pekin ducks had a significantly higher water-holding capacity. The meat color (CIE L, a, b) revealed that no significant differences among the lightness, redness and yellowness of the skin (breast) in both breeds except for the yellowness of the lean muscles of the Pekin duck breast. Pekin duck meat had significantly higher crude fat content than Philippine White Mallard. Meanwhile, amino acid profiles of both duck breeds showed no significant differences for the individual amino acids except for leucine and isoleucine in Pekin ducks. It also revealed that Pekin duck meat has higher levels of the total non-essential amino acids and differed significantly from that of Philippine White Mallard ducks. The fatty acid compositions from the meat of both breeds of duck did not show any significant differences, however, Philippine White Mallard duck was noted to have significantly higher cholesterol content in both skin and lean muscles compared to Pekin ducks. The outcomes of the study clearly showed that breed is factor and provided some pronounced effects among parameters. Although Philippine White Mallard duck is not efficient for meat production its meat has a potential for meat processing because of its content of unsaturated fatty acids which makes it less prone to oxidation and can compete with other meat-type due to its comparable nutritional value.