Antinutritional factors of importance in animal nutrition: Strategies for decreasing anti-nutritional effects

Abstract

Secondary metabolites also known as anti-nutritional factors are nothing more than natural components responsible for exerting physiological functions in plants. They are substances that, even in vestigial state, reduce or prevent the use of a nutritive element, either at the digestive level, or at the metabolic level. However due to the important importance in animal nutrition that some ingredients exert, they need to undergo a chemical or physical process to make it feasible to use in animal nutrition, without, however, having to "suffer" from the adverse effects of excessive consumption of certain secondary compounds. Thus, the present review aims to elucidate the strategies to reduce the effects inherent to the antinutritional factors in the animals' diet. Heat treatment, extrusion, pelletizing and milling are widely used methods for reducing and / or inactivating undesirable substances in food. In addition, some animals naturally and evolutionarily have developed strategies to cope with these factors.