Meat and Meat Products

The flesh from the cattle over 6 months of age is beef and from younger cattle is veal. Beef is a nutritious food having approximately 25% protein and rich in essential acids, В vitamins, and minerals.

The primary products of swine are pork, lard, hides, and innumerable by-products. Pork is more successfully cured and stored than any other meats.

Fresh red meats are refrigerated. Cured meats such as ham, ba­con, and sausage contain chemical preservatives (salt, nitrate, nitrite) but are, in addition, heat processed and stored under refrigeration. Fresh and cured meats are also canned. With severe heat processing a shelf-stable product is produced. In certain products stability is achieved in part through other processes: fermentation, drying, smoking and impregnation with vinegar.

The manufacture of meat products includes those processes which prepare the product for consumption and increase the stability, improve the texture, colour and appearance of various meat items. Various processes are employed depending upon the desired result. Various enzymatic agents and other additives are often used.

The manufactured meat products can be grouped as follows: cured and pickled, cured and smoked, tenderized fresh, frozen, and canned.

Cured and pickled meats. Cured meats are those items which have had combined with them salt, sodium or potassium nitrite. Sugar and spices are optional ingredients.

The salt functions as a preservative while the nitrite and nitrate combine with the meat pigments to form fairly stable coloured com­pounds.

Cured and smoked meats. In the category of cured, smoked and cooked meats is a broad line of sausage products such as frank­furters and bologna, which differ from cured and pickled meats in that they are prepared from finely chopped (or comminuted) meat to which salt, sugar, spices and flavourings have been added. They may also include such items as cereals, milk powders, protein hydrolysates, and other substances.

These products are not pickled since cure penetration is obtained during an extensive mincing or chopping procedure. To secure the low temperatures often necessary for stability during the heating pro­cess, suitable amounts of ice are incorporated during the chopping operation. Ice also introduces moisture and thus increases the accept­ability of the end product by assuring proper juiciness.

The products are usually heated in the smoke house to approxi­mate internal temperature of 65.6 - 76.7°C. Hardwood smoke is introduced, and the products are smoked for a length of time suffi­cient to impart the characteristic smoked flavour. This smoking op­eration further increases stability of the end products by depositing on the surface a certain quantity of bacteriostatic agents (2300).

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