Basic curing ingredients

Abstract

Meat curing is an ancient process that was developed from the necessity to preserve a highly perishable food product. It is generally believed the cured meat processes were derived from preservation treatments first developed with salt. There is evidence of meat preservation with salt as early as 3,000 B.C. (Romans, Costello, Carlson, Greaser, & Jones, 2001), and it is clear that the Romans utilized rock salt for a variety of meat preservation treatments (Pegg & Shahidi, 2000). Several reviews of meat curing (Binkerd & Kolari, 1975; Cassens, 1990; Pegg & Shahidi, 2000; Pierson & Smoot, 1982; Sebranek, 1979) have suggested that the use of salt from a variety of sources probably resulted in observations that certain types of salt created a very attractive reddish pink meat color. Over time, it was recognized that salt contaminated with salt peter (potassium nitrate) provided a superior salted meat color and thus the multifunctional contributions of curing ingredients to cured meats began to become more obvious. Once saltpeter was recognized as a source of cured meat color, direct addition of nitrate to meat curing mixtures became common. In the mid-to-late 1800s, the meat industry began to evolve from what was primarily an animal slaughter industry to a slaughter-processing- preservation industry as population demographics began to shift and a greater need for commercial food preservation developed. The turn of the century brought applications of chemistry to the meat industry and a major discovery by German chemists showed that an essential step in the meat curing process was conversion of nitrate to nitrite. Subsequent research established the concentrations of nitrite required and in 1926, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published regulations describing permitted uses and concentrations of nitrite as a cured meat ingredient (Pegg & Shahidi, 2000). The last half of the twentieth century brought rapid developments in meat curing systems including cure accelerators (reductants and acidulants), new equipment (multiple-needle injectors, tumblers, and massagers), water-binding ingredients (phosphates and others) and USDA regulations governing water addition and retention in processed meats. Today meat curing processes have become a highly sophisticated science. It has become critical for meat processors to have a good fundamental understanding of the functional properties of all of the ingredients used in order to utilize those ingredients to best advantage in a highly competitive marketplace. © 2009 Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.