Practical Dietary Approaches to Increase Longissimus Intramuscular Fat Content and Their Influence on Glycolytic Potential and Pork Quality Characteristics

Alvaro Rojo Gomez, I congratulate the authors for an excellent and timely review. As I implemented a research program with pigs of different sexes, aiming to evaluate nutritional programs with variation in the levels of digestible lysine (LD) for pigs from 65 to 160 days, therefore slaughtered with body weight above 100 Kg. I obtained data that confirm that rations with LD levels, below that recommended for different weight ranges, resulting in a greater amount of intramuscular fat, without impairing the animals' performance and carcass. Two of these studies were even published here at ENGORMIX, with the respective titles of Lysine requirement for growing-finishing immunocastrated male pigs and Nutritional plans of digestible lysine for growing-finishing gilts.

In addition to these works, a summary was also published with considerations on the results of this research program under the title; Reducing the cost of pig production is possible, where there is information about the fat content of the animals' muscle. In the opportunity, I associated the increase in intramuscular fat due to the possible increase in the enzyme fatty acid synthetase (FAs) and reduction in the activity of the muscle sensitive hormone lipase (HSL) enzyme caused by the lower level of LD.