Aline Piccini Roll / Eduardo Gonçalves Xavier / Fernando Rutz
Poultry and pig meat, as well as egg consumption, represent an excellent source of protein and amino acids to satisfy a significant fraction of human nutritional requirements. With this in mind, this book deals with the physiological characteristics of poultry digestion and absorption and discusses how the addition of fats and organic Selenium to the diet can improve the quality of these animals’ products. On the other hand, it also takes an in-depth look at how exogenous enzymes act on the anti-nutritional factors present in feed that cannot be digested due to the lack of endogenous enzyme production by the birds. Nutrition influences, for example, the synthesis and metabolism of many hormones involved in animal metabolism and performance. These effects are exerted by specific nutrients, nutritional energy status and changes in food consumption. For this reason, this book also discusses aspects related to nutrigenomics so that it is possible to advance our understanding of the relationships between nutrition, genetics and the productive and reproductive performance of animals.