Physiological behaviour of a natural iron chelate: the Ca chlorophyllinate fed to veal calves.

I N veal production, the color of the fresh meat is an important factor affecting its quality. The consumer considers that the light pink color of the carcass, which is associated with the feeding of milk, will reflect a specific taste. The paleness of the muscle tissue is actually developed by an exclusive milk feeding and results from a state of anemia due to the low iron content of the milk (Blaxter, Sharman and MacDonald, 1957; Charpentier, 1966). It has been well demonstrated that iron administered either orally or by injection to milk-fed calves affects color and pigment content of the skeletal muscles (Bray et al., 1959; Hibbs e't al., 1963; Charpentier, 1966). Many studies have shown that myoglobin is the main pigment affecting muscle color and, since iron is incorporated into this pigment, it seems important to control iron intake and its further absorption and utilization by the animal, in order to be able to produce veal meat of high quality. From this point of view, the inclusion of iron-chelating agents would seem associated with inhibiting iron absorption. Saint-Laurent and Brisson (1967) studied the effects of iron, desferrioxamine and age on the color characteristics and pigment contents of skeletal muscles of veal calves. The authors noted through their trial that dietary iron and desferrioxamine had no effect on either the hemoglobin or the myoglobin content of the vastus lateralis muscle. The changes in pigment concentration were influenced more by age than by experimental treatments. Preliminary tests were performed in vitro to study the chelating effect of calcium chlorophyllinate, after which, its physiological behaviour was studied using ~gFe technique. The study presented in this report