Comprehensive evaluation of fatty acids in foods. IX. Fowl.

An extensive survey of the post-1960 literature on the lipids of fowl has been completed. This review shows that the total lipid content of chicken tissues increases with age. The fatty acid composition of both chicken and turkey tissues reflects the fatty acid composition of the dietary fat. The fatty acid composition data for dark meat, light meat, or skin of all classes of chicken --broiler-fryer, roaster, and stewing hen--raised on diets equivalent to commercial feed were combined into single tissue-type fatty acid profiles. Similar profiles were also established for roaster-fryer turkey, young tom turkey, and young hen turkey. Breed, sex, and environmental temperature showed only minor effects on the tissue fatty acid compositions. Young chicken flesh contains less fat than that of stewing hens, turkeys, and other fowl, which all have approximately equal total fat content. White meat of chicken and turkey contains the least amount of fat, and the skin of all birds contained the largest amount, duck and goose skin containing the greatest of all. Tables of the total fat and fatty acid composition of tissue and tissue composites of fowl are given. Studies on chicken and turkey tissues were sufficiently numerous that the computed fatty acid compositions in the tables are considered reliable representation of market birds. Data for goose, duck, partridge, pheasant, pigeon, and quail were computed from sparse information and should be viewedas provisional guides.