A review of the factors influencing the development of intermuscular adipose tissue in the growing pig

Compared with subcutaneous or abdominal fat depots of pig carcasses, intermuscular fat displays a number of original properties. It cannot be easily removed from fresh or processed meat delivered to consumers and has therefore an influence on consumer acceptability of pork. Particular compositional characteristics of intermuscular fat include low lipid content and small size of adipocytes. How age (or body weight), gender, castration, environmental temperature, feeding restriction, diet composition, as well as genetic factors affect intermuscular fat development and composition are surveyed in this review paper. Up to now, few studies have specifically dealt with the intermuscular compartment of body fat while very abundant information is available on the subcutaneous one. As a general rule, any factor, either genetic or non-genetic, which causes a decrease of whole carcass fat deposition generates a higher relative importance of the intermuscular fraction of total fat as well as an increased degree of unsaturation of constituent fatty acids.