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R.Codony * (coordinator), F.Guardiola, P.Bondioli, P.C.Dutta, M.T.Rodríguez, E. Abad, H.Budzinski, M.D.Baucells, E.Blas, M.Parini.
(*)University of Barcelona, Faculty of Pharmacy, Nutrition and Food Science Department- CeRTA

FEEDING FATS SAFETY is a 6th EC Framework Programme Research Project, with the participation of nine partners, which started at January 2005 and will end at March 2008 (http://www.ub.edu/feedfat/). Its primary aim is to fit animal nutrition requirements with a high level of safety and quality of some types of meat production, on the basis of the use of fats coming from by- or co-products of the food chain. This aim must be adequate to consumer satisfaction and health demands, and with environmental protection. The project wanted to answer to the following questions: Are fat by- or co-products materials really safe for animal production?; What are the main chemical characteristic of these fats?; How contribute these fats to the global intake of contaminants (dioxins, PCB, PBDE, PAH) through the diet?; Repercussions of using these fats on lipid quality and stability of meat (oxidation, FA composition, trans FA)?; What are the suitable analytical controls to assess quality and safety of fats?; Are consumers confident respect to these systems of meat production?; How standardisation and policy control of these fats could be improved?; Are these fats really available, useful and profitable for fat and feed producers?. The work plan includes two parts.
The first part of the project deals with the characterization of several fatty by- and co-products coming from the food chain. We analysed 125 samples corresponding to 10 categories: 25 acid oils from chemical refining; 16 acid oils from physical refining; 8 lecithins; 8 recycled cooking oils; 36 animal fats; 9 fish oils; 2 oils extracted from exhausted bleaching earths; 6 hydrogenated fat by-products; 3 fatty acid calcium soaps; and several fats included in a miscellaneous group. In these samples, we determined some composition parameters, degradation levels and environmental contaminants such as PAH, PBDE, dioxin and DL-PCB. A brief summary of the corresponding results is presented in this poster, and a system of classification of these fat categories has been proposed by using FTIR spectroscopy (Gasperini et al., Eur. J. Lipid Sci Technol 109, 2007, 673-681).
In the second part of the project we have designed a series of 5 animal trials in order to assay the effects (both in poultry and rabbit) of some selected fat by- and co-products with extremely low and high levels of trans FA, oxidation products and contaminants. The aims were to assess:  the innocuity of these fats added to the feed, respectively for poultry and rabbit; the effects on the lipid composition of meat and other tissues and fluids; the presence in these tissues of fatty acid isomers, FA oxidation and sterol oxidation products; and the rate of transfer of contaminants from feed to meat and other tissues. Preliminary results of these parameters in meat are reported in this poster. Significant results have been found respect to the variability of meat lipid composition and its corresponding oxidation stability. Regarding the contaminant transfer to meat, very low levels are found for PAH, due to their quick metabolisation, but a clear accumulation pattern was observed for dioxin and DL-PCB, with higher levels for poultry than for rabbit. We observed that levels of these compounds accumulated in poultry meat with skin exceeded in some cases the upper limits established by EC regulations, even when the corresponding feed showed levels under the EC regulation limits.

Keywords: Fat co- and by-products; animal feeding; meat quality and safety; analytical control