Contributions on the Sensorial, Physico-Chemical and Nutritional Characterization of Meat in Flemish Giant Rabbit Breed

The purpose of this study was to investigate the sensorial, physico-chemical and nutritional traits of the meat in Flemish Giant rabbit breed. The biological material comprised 75 rabbits (25 males and 50 females), slaughtered at the age of 11 months, at an average carcass weight of 11.5 kg. Samples of the following muscle groups were taken: Longissimus dorsi (LD), Triceps brachii (TB) and Semimembranosus (SM) and were kept at 2 C. Two hundred and twenty-five samples were analyzed to assess the physico-chemical peculiarities (pH measurements at 24- and 48 h post-slaughter; water, proteins, lipids, fatty acids and crude ash assessments). Another 225 samples (75 for each muscle group) were used as well to investigate the sensorial properties. The results issued from sensorial analysis were close as score among the three muscle groups studied. The pH value was higher in TB muscles. LD muscles from males had the highest protein content (21.70%), TB muscles of females had the highest proportion of lipids (2.65%), while the fatty acid content was higher in females for all analyzed muscles. Except for muscular content in some fatty acids, variance analysis highlighted not significant differences between genders for the studied characters.