— Preface —
People who often go to the supermarket or vegetable market to buy meat will find that the pork ribs and tenderloin we eat are all fresh meat, but the pig's trotters are almost always frozen.
Why are pig's trotters not fresh? Where did these frozen trotters come from? Is it as safe to buy as fresh as fresh?
— Frozen trotters —
Pork, chicken, duck and fish, etc., are more common meats on the table of our people, and pig's trotters are no exception.
The common ones in the north are braised pig's trotters, roasted pig's trotters in sauce, the color is rich, the taste is soft and tumble, it tastes oily but not greasy, and it is very elastic, and Guangdong prefers to use pig's trotters to make soup, such as flower pig's feet soup, soybean pig's feet soup, the soup is delicious and delicious, and the beauty is beautiful.
There are also more special methods, such as Huadiao pig's trotters, simmer slowly with Huadiao wine, the wine is fragrant, it can also go fishy, the meat is delicious, and the pig's trotters are jelly, crystal clear, and it tastes cold and cold, it is a good cold dish.
Because pig trotters are rich in collagen, it enhances the elasticity of the human body and has a certain preventive effect on delaying aging, so the majority of women also prefer to eat pig trotters.
But a pig only has 4 trotters, but there are hundreds of catties of meat on the body, so the ** of fresh pig's trotters is generally a few yuan more expensive than pork, and it can be sold for nearly 20 yuan a catty.
But it is not difficult to find that we often see a lot of frozen pig trotters in the supermarket, **not expensive, compared with fresh pig trotters, can be half of the difference**, where does this cheap frozen pig trotters come from?
— Pig's trotters**
The first of frozen pig trotters is not complicated, and it is generally divided into two kinds, one is domestic production and self-sale, and the other is foreign cold chain imports.
With a population of more than 1.4 billion people in China, the demand for meat products is very huge, and pigs need to be raised for at least half a year to a year to meet the slaughter standard.
It is difficult to meet the needs of our people for domestic production and self-sale, so the state will arrange to import meat from other countries, and pig's trotters are one of them.
Pig's trotters can be made delicious in China, but it is not eaten abroad, and many European and American countries do not eat pig's trotters.
There are also pig heads, pig intestines, chicken heads, chicken feet, chicken buttocks, etc., and the organs and parts of the body of poultry are generally not eaten by foreigners.
Originally, they threw it away, but after discovering that we liked to eat it, they began to pack it one after another and began to sell it to China to make money.
Foreign countries are far away from China, and the general mode of transportation is cheap sea transportation, in order to prevent the deterioration of pig trotters, merchants have to freeze pig trotters and pack them for delivery.
Therefore, part of the origin of frozen pig trotters is abroad, as for **, because of the demand we have a large amount of purchases, and we buy "eliminated products" that the other party does not need, * will not be too high.
From the assembly line packaging, to the delivery docking, acceptance of quality inspection, and finally the distribution of merchants to various places, it takes several months, and there is no problem with the pig's trotters being stored in a frozen state.
However, it is not excluded that there will be repeated freezing and thawing, even if the quality will not be a problem, but the taste will be discounted, so you must choose carefully when buying frozen pig trotters, so as not to buy spoiled products.
Another kind of frozen pig trotters on the market is frozen and processed by our domestic processing plants, because there are also some large-scale farms and slaughterhouses in China, with large output, and wholesale is carried out all over the country.
Pig's trotters will be concentrated in cold storage, and after saving a certain amount, they will be wholesaled to partners.
However, there are some unscrupulous businessmen on the market, they inject water into the pig's trotters before freezing the pig's trotters to increase the amount of pig's trotters, and after freezing, they are all ice, and it is normal to have a little water, which is difficult for ordinary people to find, and merchants take the opportunity to make profits.
Some people will find that the carefully selected large pig's trotters are not soft and rotten after being stewed for a long time in the morning, and the texture and taste are not good, and some people think that there is a problem with their own cooking methods.
In fact, the problem may appear in the pig's trotters, because there is a kind of pig's trotters on the market, which is not the pig's trotters, but the sow's trotters.
Ordinary pigs take up to one year to grow, and the trotters grow for one year, which will not be particularly large, but it is different if it is a sow.
Sows are production lines, feeding sows is to breed and breed piglets, a sow can not only give birth to a litter, generally have to be bred for three or five years before being eliminated.
The pig's trotters of this sow are not suitable for consumption, but in order not to waste it, merchants will still hoard it for wholesale, which will be a little cheaper than ordinary pig's trotters.
So when buying, remember that it is not that the bigger the trotters, the better, but that they can be distinguished in many ways.
How do I buy these types of frozen trotters? Is eating it bad for the body?
— Safety and Security —
Frozen meat is not what we think, wash it and put it in the freezer directly.
How to preserve frozen meat is a technical discipline, meat needs to be pre-cooled and acid discharged before freezing, the speed of freezing needs to be controlled, and there are two freezes after one freezing, and there are many processes.
The purpose of this "self-inflicted" is to ensure the safety and nutritional value of frozen meat, but the taste is not as good as that of fresh meat.
Although frozen meat has shortcomings, the country has always had relevant reserve plans and work in terms of stockpiling frozen meat, which is used to deal with meat products in response to major natural disasters, public health and other emergencies.
They also have a renewal cycle, and the maximum storage time will not exceed 4 months, which is not very important in normal times, but in extraordinary times, these reserves of frozen meat are life-saving materials.
The country has strict control standards in terms of food safety, which can be seen that the safety of frozen meat is trustworthy, and we do not need to worry about the harm of frozen meat to the body when purchasing.
But in the selection, it still takes a lot of effort, one is to look at the color, the color is particularly white, try not to buy, because it may have been soaked in bleach, and the color of the pigskin is close to the skin color.
The second is to smell it, if the chemical potion is soaked, there will always be a smell of the potion, if it smells weird, try not to buy it.
The third is to look at the packaging to see the date, if not, ask the staff, the production date and shelf life is the information that each product must have, if not, you can report the suspicion of fraud, this kind of pig trotters are easy not to buy.
If you are still cooking by yourself, it is recommended that you try to buy fresh pig's trotters, and the taste will be better.
Not only pig's trotters, but also frozen chicken thighs, frozen chicken wings, frozen chicken feet, etc. on the market, many eat barbecue, and if it is convenient, they will buy pickled "Orleans chicken wings", which are frozen foods.
Their ** is roughly the same as frozen pig trotters, either imported from abroad, or domestic farms.
Chicken farms or duck farms, after slaughtering, will divide each part, and then contact different businesses**, such as braised meat shops commonly use chicken necks and duck necks, chicken feet and duck palms, chicken racks and duck racks, barbecue restaurants generally need chicken wings, and chicken steak restaurants need chicken breasts.
What we commonly see in supermarkets are frozen chicken legs and frozen duck legs, and when buying, we should pay attention to a few points.
One is to look at the thickness of the frost, the thicker the frost, the longer the chicken has been frozen, try not to buy this type.
The second is to look at the color, the color of normal frozen chicken is slightly beige, if there is red bruising or gray, it may be caused by improper storage, indicating that it is not fresh, try not to buy.
The third is to look at the chicken skin and chicken, the tighter the fresher, the more flabby, and even start to wrinkle out of the chicken, indicating that it is not fresh, it is not recommended to buy.
When buying frozen meat, don't buy it cheaply at a roadside stall, try to buy it in a regular supermarket or butcher store, and the quality is guaranteed.
— Epilogue —
Frozen meat is very common in our lives, and sometimes we can't eat all the fresh meat we buy at home, and we will put it in the refrigerator to freeze, so we can't avoid eating some frozen meat.
Normally, when we thaw it, we take it out directly and put it at room temperature to slowly thaw, and if it is cold, it will be soaked in warm water to dissolve, so that the time is relatively long, and it is easy to breed bacteria in summer.
The correct way to thaw is that if you want to eat it tomorrow, put it in the refrigerator overnight in advance, and the frozen meat will slowly thaw and soften in these hours at night, but because of the low temperature, bacteria will not multiply in large numbers, which is more hygienic.
In this way, the thawed meat is washed in water with vinegar, and then soaked in ginger juice or cooking wine, and the smell of meat will not be too heavy.
If you have a microwave oven at home, you can save time and effort, and put it directly into it to thaw it regularly, which can quickly melt the frozen meat, which is very convenient.
Whether it is raw meat or frozen meat, it is often in contact with us in life, but eat meat in moderation, especially the elderly and children, who are prone to indigestion and even aggravate constipation.