Review for AAS Vocabulary • Palatability: how a food appeals to the palate (smell, sight, taste, texture, etc.) • Retail Cuts: small cuts of meat customers purchase at grocery stores • Antemortem: before death • Wholesale Cuts: large sections of carcass ( half a hog or quarter of a beef) that are sold to stores who cut them into retail cuts • Rigor Mortis: a physiological process where muscles stiffen and lock into place • Exsanguination: removal of an animal’s blood • Postmortem: after death • Mastication: chewing • Meat (muscle?): any edible tissue from animals • Chine: the backbone of an animal • Kosher: any food prepared according to Jewish dietary law • Immobilization: to render an animal oblivious to pain • Aging: to let a carcass hang in a cool environment for a period of time to let enzymes break down meats 4 Categories of Meats • • • • • • • • Red Poultry Seafood/Fish Game Red: beef, veal, lamb, pork (?) Poultry: chicken, turkey, duck (?) Fish: trout, crab, salmon, lobster, tilapia Game: bear, turkey, duck, antelope, grouse, deer, moose, pheasant Meat Names • • • • • • • • • Poultry Beef Meat Veal Mutton Lamb Pork Chevon Cabrito History of the Meat Industry • Uncle Sam: – Sam Wilson a pork producer • Cincinatti was called – Porkopolis • Wall Street: – actually a wall erected in Manhattan to prevent pigs from entering town, kept the name ever since History of the Meat Industry • Packing Industry: went from an art to a science (why?) • The Packing Industry: – meats were salted and packed into barrels • Used to be one animal at a time, now: – Beef = 4,000/line/day – Pork = 8,000/line/day – Chickens = 70-80,000/line/day History of the Meat Industry • • • • No federal inspection Upton Sinclair’s book “The Jungle” Meat Inspection Act of 1906 Humane Slaughter Act of 1957 Meat Industry • Seven areas of inspection • Sanitation, antemortem, postmortem, control and restriction of condemned materials, product, laboratory inspection, marketing and labeling The slaughter process • • • • • • Live inspection Immobilization Humane slaughter act Bolt, electricity, gas No pain Heart must continue pumping Kosher Slaughter: ~ Any food prepared according to Jewish dietary law ~Are exempt from stunning the animal but must be done as humanely as possible ~Must be from religiously acceptable animals ~Meats are undesirable if improperly slaughtered, are not cloven hooved, etc. called non kosher ~Kosher foods have a mark (Circle U) ~Area must be blessed by a rabbi, only the forequarters can be used because sciatic nerve in hindquarters Continuation of Slaughter Process • Exsanguination • Slit the throat, done quickly to prevent hemorrhaging or spots in the meat from ruptured blood vessels • Gut the animal, save edible organs (liver is the most common edible organ) • Internal organs are inspected for health problems, each carcass for consumption has to be inspected Processing the Carcass • Carcasses are split • Cooler • rigor mortis (6-12 hours for beef and lamb, 30m-3hours for pork) • Enzymes and microorganisms break down tissue • Rigor – Relax = Meat When does Meat become Muscle? • After the rigor/relax process!!! • Why hang a carcass? – Over a week – Enzymes and microorganisms break down meats – Increase palatability and flavor and tenderness Meats are Good! • Meats taste good because of intramuscular fat – marbling • This is fat within the meats, not globs that you can cut off Antimortem Effects that can affect meat quality: A. Feed B. Genetics C. Sex/Age D. Stress E. Disease ***Porcine Stress Syndrome (PSS) is a stress that actually ruins the meat of an animal and causes the meat to be (PSE) pale, soft and excudative (watery) *** DDF or dry, dark and firm is a stress condition in cattle causing “dark cutters” Postmortem effects that can affect meat quality: ~heating and cooling is the main one! ~cleanliness Where do steaks and chops come from? ~the loin of the animal