The effect of long term dietary linseed addition on performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of Italian Simmental (IS) and Italian Holstein (HI) young bulls was investigated. Thirty-two animals were assigned to 4 groups following a factorial design: 2 breeds - IS and IH - × 2 diets - containing whole ground linseed (5-8% of DM) and control. IS had greater in vivo performance and carcass characteristics than IH. IS muscle had lower C14:0, C16:0, SFA, higher C18:2n-6 cis, PUFAn-6, PUFA and PUFA/SFA proportion than IH in phospholipids (PL) fraction. Linseed inclusion did not affect animal's performance and carcass characteristics. In muscle PL, linseed increased C20:0, C22:0, C23:0, C20:5n-3 and decreased C20:4n-6, PUFAn-6/n-3, PUFAn-6 concentration. Linseed decreased C14:0, C16:0 proportion in neutral lipids (NL) and increased total PUFAn-3, C18:3n-3 proportions both in NL and PL fraction. However, these differences were relatively low from a quantitative point of view.
