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ABSTRACT: The use of soyabean proteins as meat extenders has spread significantly due to the interesting nutritional and functional properties that are present in soyabean proteins. Together with these, health and economical reasons are the major causes for the addition of soyabean proteins to meat products. Nevertheless, despite the good properties associated to soyabean proteins, there are many countries in which the addition of these proteins is forbidden or in which the addition of soyabean proteins is allowed up to a certain extent. Thus, the need of analytical methods enabling the detection of added soyabean proteins in meat products is obvious. Microscopic, electrophoretic, immunologic, and chromatographic methods are the most widely used for this purpose. However, the detection of soyabean proteins in meat products presents difficulties related to the composition (meat species, meat quality, soyabean protein source, presence of other non-meat proteins, etc.) and the processing of the meat products, and, although these analytical methods have tried to overcome all these difficulties, there is still not a method enabling quantitative assessment of soyabean proteins in all kinds of meat products.
KEY WORDS: meat products, meat proteins, soyabean proteins, non-meat proteins, meat extenders, fat replacers, quality control.
I. INTRODUCTION
In occidental countries, meat is considered the top quality protein source, not only due to its nutritional characteristics but also for its appreciated taste. In order to take the greatest advantage of animals, the food industry does not only use the muscle meat but also other sections of the animal with lower quality. This is for the manufacture of a wide range of marketable products, such as sausages, hams, bologna, salami, etc.1 Nevertheless, these products used to present a high level of fat. For instance, frankfurters and bolognas may have as much as 30% fat, and fresh pork sausages are allowed to contain up to 50% fat. The presence of this high fat content adds difficulties in the technological processes used for the manufacture of this kind of meat product. As an example, during the preparation of emulsion-type meat products, such as sausages, a large amount of fat is liberated. In order to prevent coalescence of this fat during heating, an emulsifying agent is needed. In meat this stabilization is mainly due to meat proteins....