Nutritional composition of meat from tartaruga-da-Amazônia (Amazonian turtle) Podocnemis expansa bred in captivity and at slaughter age

Abstract

The human beings require the protein sources for their organisms, which usually are provided by animal origin. For this purpose, the consumption of wild animal meat has been an option, usually at rural regions. Lately, the consumption of these types of meat has been increasing by people living in urban centers, including the turtle meat. Nevertheless, there is no records on the quality of the meat of turtles bred in captivity conditions. Thus, an experiment was carried out in a joint work with CENAQUA (Centro Nacional de Quelônios do Amazonas – National Center for Amazonian Chelonian) and Pro-fauna (Iguape – São Paulo) with the objective to study the meat quality of Amazon turtle bred in captivity. The study was performed in two groups of animals (seven female and seven male). The turtle meat had the similar coloration to chicken meat. Protein contents ranged from 16.68 to 18.02%, lipid contents from 2.61 to 1.88%, cholesterol amount from 49.86 to 50.71 mg/100g, caloric value from 88.92 to 89.30 Kcal/100g, for females and males, respectively. The turtle meat was rich in fat acids (oleic and arachidonic acid), as well as in calcium, phosphate and potassium contents.