Soft goats’ cheese enriched with polyunsaturated fatty acids by dietary supplementation: manufacture, physicochemical and sensory characterisation

Modifying the lipid composition of milk and dairy products, to improve their nutritional properties, without negatively altering their technological, sensorial and functional qualities, constitutes a challenge for the dairy sector. This study was performed to increase the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and decrease the saturated fatty acids (SFA) content of goats’ milk, under real field conditions and production, by means of altering the animals diet. The effect of these changes were characterised during the manufacture of soft ripened cheese and assessing the impact on physicochemical and sensorial characteristics. Two groups of 30 crossbreed Alpine dairy goats were fed either a control diet or a diet supplemented with oilseeds providing 50.4 g UFA.goat−1.day−1 or 69.6 g UFA.goat−1.day−1 which supplied respectively 1.4 and 2.4 % of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Supplementing the feed of dairy goats with PUFA was shown to have beneficial effects on the FA composition of goat’s milks and cheeses: (1) an increase in the content of ALA (18:3n-3; from 0.78 to 1.78 g.100 g−1 of total FA) and rumenic acid (main CLA; from 0.75 to 1.27 g.100 g−1 of total FA); (2) a decrease in the n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio (from 4.6 to 2) and the overall SFA content (from 66 to 60.4 g.100 g−1 of total FA). The corrected cheese yield was higher for the supplemented milks (16.3 %) in comparison to the control milks (15.4 %). Both cheeses showed a similar evolution in the levels of proteolysis and lipolysis with no flavour defects being detected. Cheese sensory scores for the two types of cheeses were similar. Hence, healthier goats’ milk and cheese FA profiles were obtained with good sensorial characteristics.