Choosing the right cuts of meat is crucial if you are planning to eat a healthy non-vegetarian diet. Most often, meat gets blamed for unhealthy fattening foods, but this issue can easily be resolved by picking lean cuts of fresh and well-fed meat.
The importance of choosing the right, healthy kind of meat is highlighted even more in diets that ought to be weight loss and cholesterol sensitive.
1. Poultry products should be very high in tenderness, juiciness, and flavor.
2. Poultry products should be virtually free from defects such as bruises, discolorations, and feathers.
3. The products should have no broken bones.
4. For whole birds and parts with the skin on, there should be no tears in the skin or exposed flesh that could dry out during cooking, and a good covering of fat under the skin.
5. Also, whole birds and parts should be fully fleshed and meaty.
6. The natural colour of fresh meat, except poultry meat, should be dark red. Meat which is in the process of losing its freshness, no longer shows a bright red colour, even when intensively exposed to air, because of the partial destruction of the red meat pigment which results in a grey, brown or greenish colour.
7. Surface of the meat should be clean and it should not be too wet or too dry and there should not be any unattractive blood splashes on muscle tissue.
8. Processed meat can be evaluated by its appearance according to the different raw materials of which the product is composed and where the use of some components is exaggerated (for instance too many particles of visible fat or connective tissue, etc.).
9. Beef, Mutton and poultry meat should be tender and juicy.
10. The smell of fresh meat should be slightly acidic. The freshness of meat is generally indicated by its smell together with its appearance and colour.