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Explanation of 48 Terms in the Processing of Meat Products

1. Slaughter Rate: It refers to the percentage of the carcass of livestock and poultry after slaughter to the fasting weight before slaughter.

 2. Lean Meat Rate: It refers to the percentage of lean meat (muscle) in the body of livestock and poultry to the body weight of the carcass, which is an important quality indicator reflecting the meat production and carcass quality of livestock and poultry.

 3. Carcass Chemical Composition: It refers to protein, fat, minerals and water, etc., their content in the carcass also varies with age.

 4. Stunning: The application of physical or chemical methods, in which livestock are placed in a coma for a short period of time prior to slaughter.

 5. High-quality Beef: The fattening cattle are slaughtered and processed according to the standard process, and the beef with the quality of the middle-excellent level or above is called high-quality beef.

 6. Acid Discharge of Beef: After the beef is slaughtered, the carcass is stored for a period of time in a non-polluting environment of 1 to 4 °C, so that the pH value of the beef increases, the acidity decreases, and the tenderness and flavor of the beef are improved.

 7. Physiological Maturity: It reflects the age of the animal. The evaluation is based on the degree of ossification of the cartilage at the end of the spinous process of the carcass vertebrae (mainly the last three thoracic vertebrae). The higher the degree of ossification, the older the cattle. In addition to the determination of ossification, age can also be determined according to the changes of the incisors.

 8. Primary Muscle Bundle: A bundle of 50 to 150 muscle fibers that is wrapped in a connective tissue membrane.

 9. Secondary Muscle Bundles: Dozens of primary muscle bundles are assembled to form larger bundles, which are wrapped with connective tissue membranes.

 10. White Muscle: Also known as white muscle, it refers to the muscle that is whiter in color than red muscle, and is characterized by less myoglobin content, smaller shape and fewer mitochondria. The contraction rate is relatively fast, the myofibrils are developed, and they become fast muscles.

 11. Red Muscle: Muscles are redder in color, have high levels of myoglobin in muscle fibers, and have high mitochondrial content.

 12. Connective Tissue: It is the tissue that holds the different parts of an animal’s body together. It is widely distributed and consists of a small number of cells and a large amount of intercellular substance.

 13. Meat Extract: It refers to the leachable substances that can be dissolved in water except proteins, salts and vitamins, including nitrogen-containing extracts and nitrogen-free extracts.

 14. Defrost Stiffness of Meat: If cattle and sheep freeze quickly after slaughter, the muscle has not yet reached maximum stiffness. Glycogen and ATP in the muscle are not consumed, and the residual glycogen and ATP during thawing are used as energy to cause muscle contraction to form a rigid phenomenon.

 15. Meat Thawing Stiffness Contraction: After the meat thawing stiffness occurs, the contraction of muscle fibers is intense, the meat becomes harder, and a lot of meat juice seeps out.

16. Black-cut Beef and DFD Meat: It refers to the black color of the meat, the meat is characterized by high pH value, hard texture, high water retention, and poor oxygen penetration. Mainly slaughtered cattle and other livestock animals in a state of stress.

 17. PSE Meat: P stands for meat ashen (pale), S for tenderness, and E for meat oozing out of juices. PSE meat is most commonly found in pork, and is characterized by a pale color, soft texture, and water seepage on the surface of the meat. The reason for this is the rapid depletion of glycogen, a poor quality meat in which the acidity of the meat rapidly increases (the pH value drops) after the pig is slaughtered.

 18. Tenderness of Meat: It is one of the edible qualities of meat, which refers to the texture of the meat. It is a common indicator for consumers to judge the quality of meat products. In practice it refers to the soft, juicy, chewy properties of cooked meat. In detection, it is often expressed by measuring the shear force of the meat.

 19. Flavor of Food: It refers to people’s comprehensive sense of the smell and taste of food, mainly taste and smell. Broadly speaking, it refers to the comprehensive sense of smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing when testing food.

 20. Maillard Reaction: It refers to the reaction of amino acids and reducing sugars to produce brown and aroma substances.

21. The Water-holding Power of Meat: the water-holding power of meat is also called the water retention of meat, which refers to the ability of meat to maintain its original moisture and add water to the meat when it is subjected to external force.

 22. Freezing of Meat: The process in which the moisture in meat is partially or completely turned into ice under low temperature conditions.

 23. HACCP: It means Hazard Analysis and Quality Critical Control Point, which is a preventive control system to ensure food safety and product quality, and an advanced hygiene management method.

 24. Fence Factor: The factors that prevent the growth and reproduction of microorganisms in food are all called fence factors. Although these factors are many, the ones that play an important role are few.

 25. Water Activity (Aw): It refers to the ratio of the water vapor pressure of the food solution in a closed container to the water vapor pressure of pure water at the same temperature. In fact, Aw describes the relative content of free water in the food, and the growth and reproduction of microorganisms do not depend on the total moisture content in the food. It depends on the content of effective water for microbial reproduction.

 26. Dry Consumption: The process of loss of water during the freezing, freezing and thawing of meat, resulting in a reduction in the weight of the meat.

 27. Frozen Rroasting: During the frozen storage of meat, the sublimation of the ice crystals on the surface of the meat results in the formation of many fine holes on the surface of the meat tissue, like a sea-like structure. It increases the contact area between fat and oxygen in the air, resulting in oxidation, rancidity of frozen meat, yellow-brown changes on the surface of meat, and rough surface tissue. Serious dry consumption is freezing burning.

 28. Radiation Preservation: It is a physical method of preserving food by using the radiation energy and penetrating power of atomic energy rays to kill microorganisms on food. It is a safe, hygienic, economical and effective food preservation technology.

 29. Vacuum Packaging: A packaging technology that removes the air in the packaging container and seals the food in the packaging container from the air and the outside world.

 30. Inflatable Packaging: It refers to the packaging technology that fills the packaging container with chemically inactive inert gases, such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, etc., to inhibit the reproduction of microorganisms and enzymatic spoilage and prolong the shelf life of food.

 31. Seasoning: It refers to the artificial synthetic or natural substances added in order to improve the flavor of food, give food a special taste, make it delicious and increase people’s appetite.

 32. Accessories: In the production process of meat products, in order to improve its sensory characteristics and quality, extend the shelf life or shelf life, and facilitate processing and production, some edible materials are added.

 33. Spices: The use of certain plant fruits, flowers, skins, buds, leaves, stems and roots containing spicy and aromatic ingredients added to meat products. In order to give the product a unique flavor, inhibit, cover or correct the bad flavor of meat, increase appetite and promote digestion.

 34. Food Additives: It refers to the addition of a small amount of substances during the production, processing and storage of food. These substances help to diversify food varieties, improve its color, aroma, taste, shape, and maintain freshness and quality to meet the processing technology process needs.

 35. Fermented Sausage: The meat, sugar, salt, spices and starter are mixed evenly and then poured into the casing, and then fermented to make fermented meat products with specific microbial populations.

 36. Pickling: Mix salt, nitrates, sugar and other seasonings evenly and spread them on the surface of the meat, or prepare these substances into a saturated pickling liquid based on the amount of salt, submerge the meat in it, and put it in the meat. It can be stored for 10 to 15 days at an ambient temperature of about 10°C.

 37. Crushing: The process of reducing raw meat from large to small by mechanical action. Common smashing includes cutting, grinding and chopping.

 38. Drying: The method of removing part of the moisture in the meat to achieve the technology of preserving and producing special dried meat products. This process is also called dehydration.

 39. Vacuum Drying: It refers to the process in which the moisture in the meat pieces is converted from liquid water to gaseous water vapor to achieve drying without freezing.

 40. Freeze Sublimation Drying: Sharply freeze the meat or material to -30~-40℃, while keeping it under vacuum drying conditions. The process in which ice crystals are dissipated from solid state directly to gaseous water vapor without passing through liquid water. This is often used in drying processes for heat-sensitive substances.

 41. High-temperature Meat Products: Meat products are produced by heating. The temperature of the heating medium is greater than 100°C (usually 115-121°C), and the center temperature of the meat block is greater than 115°C for a constant period of time.

 42. Low-temperature Meat Products: Compared with high-temperature meat products, the pasteurization temperature is often used for the heating and sterilization temperature, and the meat products are stored under low temperature conditions.

 43. Frying: It is a process in which the boiling point of oil is much higher than the boiling point of water to quickly sterilize meat products by heating, and use oil to produce food with special flavor.

 44. Preserved Products: Meat products produced from raw meat through processes such as marinating, sauce making, drying and fermentation (or baking).

 45. Sauce Braised Products: Sauce braised products are cooked meat products made of meat with seasonings and spices, and heated and boiled with water as a medium.

 46. Dried Meat: It is a delicate, delicious, storable and easy-to-transport cooked meat product.

 47. Bacon: The original meaning of “bacon” is smoked rib meat or cured smoked loin.

 48. Raw Hides: The fresh hides that are peeled off after slaughtering livestock are called raw hides before they are tanned, and are called raw hides in tanning.

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