A Consultancy Case Study
There are strong claims by a vocal health lobby that a higher consumption of
polyunsaturated fatty acids, specifically those with long chain lengths and
high degrees of unsaturation, the so-called omega-3 fatty acids:
- Dramatically reduces the incidence of coronary artery disease.
- Alleviate the effects of inflammatory complaints such as rheumatoid arthritis.
- In infants, improves retinal and cortical development.
Although the tools to design eggs with high contents of omega-3 fatty acids
by dietary manipulation have long been available (because egg yolk polyunsaturated
fatty acids reflect those present in the hen’s diet), they have rarely
been exploited. As a result, commercial interest is growing on the
practice of producing eggs with high concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids.
Of the 4 possible ways that have been identified of increasing the amount of
omega-3 fatty acids in diets for laying hens we have concluded that the inclusion
of dietary linseed oil offers the safest, most easily developed
and, therefore, the most promising route to investigate at this early stage.
Hens fed on a diet containing 2.1% linseed oil would be predicted to lay eggs
containing 132 mg omega-3 fatty acids. Two such eggs would, therefore, contain
the equivalent weight of omega-3 fatty acids as a 100 g portion of fish, the
usual and perhaps only current source of omega-3 fatty acids in the human diet.
At the present time we are testing our hypothesis in a small
trial with laying hens. This is at the request of a commercial client,
who wishes to establish a flock of hens to produce eggs with the high concentration
of omega-3 fatty acids that are currently being sought by significant numbers
of consumers.
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