The safety and quality of food on our counters sometimes leave much to be desired. Speaking about economy, you should not disregard the safety and quality of the products you buy. After all, taking care of one's health should always be in the first place.
The level of product quality is investigated in laboratories, but how do you know about the quality of the products yourself? To do this, you just need to remember how fresh food products differ from stale foods. In this article we will consider this issue.
Meat.
Meat is something that every day must enter the diet of a healthy person. For the preparation of meat dishes, it is best to buy meat from young animals or birds. For example, meat of animals up to the age of 6 weeks has the following properties: light pink or light red color, dense and white fatty layer. Meat of young animals (from 6 weeks to 2 years old) is red. It is juicy, tender, soft. Fat of young animals is almost white. The meat of an adult animal (from 2 to 5 years old) is saturated red, juicy, tender. The meat of the old animal (over 5 years old) is dark red, the fat is yellow.
Quality meat is covered with a thin pink crust, the place of the cut of the meat product is dense, moist, elastic. Meat juice is scarlet, translucent.
Check the safety and quality of meat in the following way - press on it with your finger. If the sealed place is restored, the meat is fresh.
A lot of freshness is said by the smell of meat. With a heated knife pierce a piece of meat and assess its odor. From the old and stale meat will come an unpleasant smell.
The meat should be frozen once. If you touch your finger to the surface of the primary frozen meat, a bright red spot will remain on its surface. Do not re-frozen such a stain will not be seen. The re-frozen meat is characterized by a red surface, a fat of pink color, bright red tendons.
If you bought meat, but not quite sure whether it's fresh or not, then do not fry it. Such meat is better to boil properly, so that all harmful bacteria that may be present in it are lost. When frying, such processing conditions for meat are not created.
Sausage.
Sausage is very popular with Russians. How to choose the freshest and safer sausage?
First, you need to know the fact that fresh boiled or semi-smoked sausage has a dry, strong, elastic shell. If the shell has traces of mold or mucus, such sausage can not be used for food. The shell should be closely adjacent to the stuffing. The cut of sausage should be natural color, without gray impregnations and stains. The stuffing should be dense, juicy.
The fat should smell nice, without the musty scent of sourness.
Bird.
If you buy a bird carcass, check its beak. The beak of a bird should be glossy, dry, elastic and odorless. Mucous membranes of the bird's mouth also should not have an unpleasant smell, they are characterized by light hydration and pinkish color. The skin color of the bird is yellow or pinkish. The surface of the skin should be moist (but not sticky) and clean. Poultry meat must be tight and dense, in chickens and turkeys - light pink, in geese and ducks - red.
The age of the purchased bird is visible on its paws. The old bird has legs with coarse, yellow skin, covered with large scales and pimples. The young chicken has a small back finger, the crest is bright red. A young bird can easily bend a breast bone, since it is uncoastened. The beak of a young bird is bright, wings are not upholstered from the edges.
Young game is characterized by a thin skin under the wings, bright pointed, not rounded, feathers. If the game starts to get wet or blue or green spots on the skin are visible, it means it's stale.
A fish.
The fresh fish do not have a belly flushed, and it is covered with mucus. Scales of fresh fish smooth, shining, closely fitting to the body. The eyes of fresh fish are convex, shiny, elastic. There should be no mucus in the gills. The fish has a fresh, fish-specific odor. The meat of the fish fits snugly to the bones and with difficulty separates from them. If you press on the fresh fish with your finger, it will quickly recover. Lower the purchased fish into a container of water. Fresh fish will drown, and stale - will pop up.
If the fish is frozen, then its meat turns pale and the eyes fall. If the fish is frozen in fresh form, then during defrosting all the above qualities are restored.
Put a heated knife in the fish you bought, and then assess the smell - if the smell is sharp and unpleasant, then the fish is stale.
Eggs.
Safety and freshness of purchased eggs can be checked as follows: dissolve a tablespoon of salt in water, dip an egg into an ode. The fresh egg will sink to the very bottom, the stale will float in the middle or float to the surface of the water.
Also, the eggs are checked for light. Spoiled eggs have spots when they are visible.
When eating goose and duck eggs, you should know that these eggs are in many cases affected by pathogens of gastrointestinal diseases. Before eating eggs, they should be washed.
Milk and dairy products.
If you drop a drop of fresh milk on the nail, the droplet shape will remain the same, it will not spread. A drop of milk diluted with water will spread over the nail.
Fresh sour cream has a homogeneous, thick consistency, it is white or yellowish in color. The frozen sour cream is covered with the serum from the top.
Overdue cottage cheese is unpleasant to taste, maybe with mold and mucus.
Choose products correctly, take care of yourself and your loved ones!