Abstract
Three plant products: Pro-vitamin A cassava leaf meal (CLM), pumpkin stem waste (PSW) and moringa leaf meal (MLM) have been known for their high nutritional, antioxidants and therapeutic values. The objective of this study was to assess their impacts on performance, lipid profile, carcass and sensory characteristics of pork meat. A total of 24 growing boars were used in this study. The boars were randomly assigned to four dietary treatments; T1 (control), T2 (CLM), T3 (PSW) and T4 (MLM). Each treatment was replicated twice with three pigs per replicate in a completely randomised design. The experiment lasted for 10 weeks. Results obtained indicated highest weight gain obtained for boars fed with diet T4 followed by those fed with diet T2 and T3 while the least was recorded for those fed with diet T1. Pigs fed diets T2, T3 and T4 had significantly higher daily feed intake compared to pigs fed the control diet. The feed conversion ratio of pigs fed diets T1, T2, T3 and T4 did not differ significantly. A significant reduction in abdominal fat was observed in T4 followed by T2 and T3. Lipid profile of pigs fed diets T2, T3 and T4 showed declining trend in values of abdominal fat, total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low density lipoprotein (LDL) and very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) with T4 as the lowest. High density lipoprotein (HDL) values Increased significantly for pigs fed diet T4 followed by T3 and T2. Significant increase in carcass yield and other prime cuts were obtained in T4 followed by T2 and T3 while organ weights indicated no significant difference among treatments. Sensory evaluation showed that T4 significantly (P<0.05) scored the highest in terms of juiciness, tenderness and overall acceptability. This was followed by T2 and T3 while T1 recorded the lowest score.