Selecting Quality Meat Guidelines - BC Seafood

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Selecting Quality Meat Guidelines
To ensure the safety it is important to be able to chose the freshest cuts available at our local grocers. The following are basic types of meat, the look, texture, and color to look for. Beef The color of the lean portions of beef should be a bright red. Vacuum pack beef and the interior of ground beef should have a more darker, purplish red color. When beef has been exposed to air it will begin to turn the familiar bright red. Ground beef contains meat from beef only in varying degrees of leanness from 70% -90% or more. Beef that is about 70% lean usually loses more fat in cooking, whereas beef containing 90% lean will lose more moisture. Veal Young beef is classified as veal. The same guidelines as older beef. Veal is a lean meat. Veal has fine grainy texture, creamy pink in color. Fat is milky white. Lamb Lamb should be a pinkish red color. . Look for marbling and only a thin layer of fat around the outside of the meat. Bones should be reddish in color. Pork Fresh pork should be grayish pink in color Should have a fine grainy texture. Ham should be firm, fine grained, pink in color Fat should have a firm feel and be milky white in color Meats are an ample source of nutrition. They require inspection and should be bought from quality retailer.