Chinese pay attention to freshness when eating.
Buy the freshest vegetables, fish swimming around, shrimp bouncing around. Even go early to buy the freshest and warmest meat, thinking that such meat can be preserved to the maximum extent in terms of flavor, nutrition and safety.
But is the fresher the meat, the better? It still needs to be a ****.
The most common fresh meat in the market: refers to the "hot fresh meat" that is slaughtered in the early morning and sold early in the morning, and the meat has not been cooled in any way.
In terms of flavor: After slaughtering, the meat needs to go through a certain period of "post-ripening" process to make the meat gradually become soft, juicy and delicious. Therefore, if the hot fresh meat lacks this process, if it is not marinated, the taste and flavor will be poor: the meat is tough, not easy to cook, and difficult to chew.
On safety: If you are exposed to a certain temperature for a long time, especially when the weather is hot, it is easy to breed bacteria such as Salmonella and cause spoilage.
Cold fresh meat, also known as cooling meat, sour meat. To be precise, it should be called "cooling and sour meat". The meat is quickly cooled at -20 and the deep temperature drops to 0 4 within 24 hours.
In the process of processing, distribution and sales, it is always under the control of the cold chain, so that the activity of enzymes and the reproduction of most microorganisms are inhibited, and the safety and hygiene of cold fresh meat are ensured. At.
In terms of flavor: the cold fresh meat has undergone a relatively full maturation process, making its texture soft and elastic, less juice loss, and smooth and tender in taste.
It is more conducive to the digestion and absorption of the human body. And because it is not frozen, there is no need to thaw before eating, and there will be no loss of nutrients, which also overcomes the nutritional defect of frozen meat.
The so-called maturation of meat: It means that the slaughtered meat is stored at 0 4 for a period of time, and the meat will slowly return to softness, that is, after the thailing period, it will reach the maturity period. It is often referred to as the "acid depletion" process. In this process, the protein in the meat is broken down by proteases to tenderize the muscles, producing a large amount of umami substances.
Frozen meat: Frozen meat refers to the meat that is slaughtered, pre-cooled and acid-drained, frozen and stored below -18, and the deep meat temperature is below -6.
In terms of flavor: after the meat is frozen, the ice crystals formed in the meat will exert a certain mechanical pressure on the tissue, which is irreversible, and a large amount of meat juice will be lost when thawed, which will affect the taste.
Comprehensive analysis shows that cold fresh meat is the best in flavor, which can make up for the lack of quality of hot fresh meat and frozen meat, and its safety is also better controlled.
When we select, we can avoid meat with dark surface color or pale muscles, and choose meat that is elastic and has no fishy odor.