Restructured Meat Products

Abstract

There has long been an interest in producing steaks, chops, and oven roasts from entire carcasses, but the amount and distribution of connective tissues and fat in the animal body has made this impossible without disassembling and reforming of the meat into boneless restructured items. Production of boneless cuts or grinding of the muscles to form a rather homogenous mass have represented attempts to achieve this end, but either could not be used for all cuts or else lacked the characteristic structure of steaks and roasts that made them desirable to the human diet. Until recently, sausages and other ground meat items represented the major developments in this area. However, equipment has now been developed that makes it possible to disassemble the carcass and reassemble it in a way that gives it a texture similar to the more desirable steaks, chops, and roasts.