Fatty Acid Profiling for the Authentication of Iberian Hams According to the Feeding Regime

The quality and sensory characteristics of Iberian ham are closely related to the pig feeding regime. These are mainly due to the inclusion or not of acorns into the diet, which significantly increases the content of monounsaturated fatty acids in this food product. In this work, the fatty acid profile from subcutaneous fat samples was evaluated and modeled with various chemometric approaches as a potential tool for authentication of Iberian ham from three categories according to the rearing system: Jamon de Bellota, Jamon de Cebo de Campo, and Jamon de Cebo. The application of artificial neural networks provided satisfactory classification and prediction rates, with oleic acid being the most important variable driving this differentiation.