Fatty Acid Composition of Lean and Fat Tissue of Swine Fed Various Dietary Levels of Sunflower Seed

Two replicates of 24 pigs each were divided into four treatment groups on the basis of weight and sex. Treatment 1 was a typical barley-soybean meal (SBM) diet. Sunflower seed was substituted for barley-SBM at the levels of 13, 26, and 39% of the diet. Linoleic acid ranged from a low of 7.5% in treatment 1 for intramuscular fat to a high of 54.2% in treatment 4 for inner backfat. Dietary treatments resulted in decreases in both saturated (myristic, palmitic, and stearic) and unsaturated fatty acids (palmitoleic, oleic, and linolenic) at all locations but were not always significant. Because of deleterious carcass effects, diets for growing-finishing swine should contain less than 13% sunflower seed (oil varieties).