Abstract

Intramuscular fat (IMF) is related to meat quality and consumer preferences. Several analytical methods involving solvents have been developed to determine IMF and are used to validate rapid and nondestructive new technologies, such as tomography, Raman spectroscopy and NIR. The current study assessed the fatty acid (FA) composition of wool and its relationship to IMF in the Longissimus lumborum muscle of lambs. Wool has the potential for non-invasive sampling, reflecting the animal’s metabolism over the past 2 or 3 weeks, and can be stored for long periods of time. The results of this experiment suggest that saturated FA in wool could potentially be used to determine the IMF of lamb.