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Expert in this article: Fu Shufang, Master of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, National Cardiovascular Disease Key Laboratory Technician
Reviewer: Li Lin, Ph.D. and Professor of Food Science, Zhongshan College, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Zhongshan Food Safety Expert
Recently, a blogger who posted on the We Media said angrily, I bought mother pork, and it tasted very fishy.
There are also various rumors about “ You can’t eat sow pork,” and the horrific rumors that “eating sow pork makes sows go crazy”.
What? ! Can’t eat female pork? Does eating pork depend on gender?
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Can female pork be eaten? What else should we pay attention to when buying pork? Today we will talk about it.
Isn’t mother pork really edible?
In pig farms, sows are generally used as breeding pigs to reproduce.
But in fact, the State Council’s current “Regulations on the Administration of Pig Slaughter”do not There are additional regulations for breeding sows. As long as the sows have passed inspection and quarantine, they can be sold and eaten on the market.
There are three types of female pork that come to market: p>
● The first one is infertile sows, the quality of pork is no different from that of ordinary pigs , everyone can’t tell the difference.
● The second is a sow with fewer conceptions, due to the nature of the breed or the poor physiological state, the quality of this kind of general pork will be slightly worse, and the price will be slightly lower.
● The third type is a sow that has had multiple births and was culled after being infertile, this is generally due to long feeding time and poor physiological state.Generally, the skin is thick and the meat is old. When cooking, it will not be cooked or cooked, and there may even be a smell without pork. Fishy smell, this kind of pork can be marketed if it passes the inspection and quarantine, but the price is low.
The pork generally sold in the market is fattening pork. If the pigs in the farm are raised as fattening pigs (meat pigs), In general, pigs are neutered when they are 2 months old. The technical term is called castration.
boars and sows can be castratedfor meat pigs , but sows are mostly used for reproduction, so boars are generally used for castration. Castration of boars is a basic work in the pig industry, which has the effect of removing taint, improving pork meat quality, reducing fighting and promoting growth. Castration methods include surgical castration, immune castration, and injection of castration injections. So the pork we usually buy is actually a “boar boar”.
Eating sow pork makes sow crazy? “sow madness” is actually epilepsy, which is a chronic disease caused by sudden abnormal discharge of neurons in the brain, resulting in short-term brain dysfunction. It’s called “epilepsy” or “horn wind”.There are many causes, including congenital heredity, birth trauma, adult closed brain trauma, cerebral schistosomiasis infection, etc. is completely irrelevant.
Due to the long feeding time of female pork, more veterinary drugs are used, and the residual veterinary drugs in the body are also It will be relatively more than pork.But the ones sold in the regular market are strictly tested and quarantined and will not cause harm to human health. However, female pork does not taste good, and its nutritional value is not as good as normal fattening pork.
How to pick pork? span>
Summarysay, normal fresh fattened pork skin is thin and the pores are small and dense,< /span>Lean meat is bright red and shiny, with milky white fat. AppearanceSlightly dry or moist, not sticky. Lean meat has a small amount of fat in the middlefat, and the transverse cut looks like a marble pattern, After muscle acupressure, the depression will recover immediately, with the inherent smell of fresh pork and no peculiar smell.
First: Look at the pig skin
< p>The most direct way is to look at the “quarantine stamp” of pork., regular pigs will be stamped with a quarantine stamp after passing the quarantine. The general quarantine stamp is a long strip stamp from the beginning to the end, including the province, quarantine time and other information, so the stamp should be visible on each cut meat (supermarkets). The meat is bought without the stamp because supermarkets are all packaged skinless meat).
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In addition, high-quality pork, the skin should be clean and free of any spots , white or milky white, black hairy roots can be seen in black-haired pigs. If there are just teats on the skin, the teats of the sow are thin and long, hard in texture and wrinkled. The milk pool is clearly visible on the transverse section, and the longitudinal section is light pink. Spongy mammary glands, fattening pork teats are short and soft. Breasts are not obvious.
Second: Color recognition
Healthy and safe pork should be bright red or pink, with a relatively bright luster, with no or very little liquid flowing out. Because myoglobin on the pork surface reacts with oxygen in the air after slaughter, gradually changing from dark red to bright red. If exposed to the air for too long, it will turn dark brown, this color indicates that the quality of the pork has deteriorated and the pork is not fresh. If the muscle color is bright red or dark red, it is very likely to be clenbuterol pork, please purchase with caution. After the pork was injected with water, the muscles of the injected pork were dull in color, with obvious water marks on the surface, and there were small water droplets when touched by hand, and the lean tissue was loose and the color was lighter. In addition, the fat of fresh pork is firmer and appears white or milky.
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Third: smell the smell
the smell of pork Except for a slight fishy smell, there will be no other peculiar smell and odor. Combined with the color observation, it should have the feeling of fresh pork.
Fourth: Test elasticity
The elasticity of the meat It is also one of the important basis for purchasing. Healthy and fresh pork has good elasticity. The pressure pit will bounce up quickly in a short time, and the elasticity will be significantly reduced when stored for a long time and when the sick pig is pressed. Can’t bounce.
How is the purchased meat stored?
Pork should be stored in the freezer area of the refrigerator if it is not eaten immediately.
If the purchase is large,< strong>It is recommended to divide into small portions before freezing, because repeated freezing-thawing process will seriously damage the muscle microstructure and reduce the quality of pork.
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How to defrost the pork from the frozen layer?
Many studies have compared different thawing methods and found that< span>As a fast thawing method, microwave thawing takes less time. Compared with slow thawing, it greatly improves the thawing efficiency, and can better preserve pork After thawing, the degree of denaturation of pork protein is lower, and the content of essential amino acids and non-essential amino acids in the muscle will be higher than that of low temperature thawing, flow thawing, room temperature thawing and other methods, and the freshness is still in the first-class fresh meat. s level,So microwave freezing can keep the quality of meat well.
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