ŻYWNOŚĆ. Nauka. Technologia. Jakość, 2006, 2 (47), 5 – 16

STANISŁAW TYSZKIEWICZ

SEARCHES FOR UNIVOCAL DEFINITION OF VEAL AND PARAMETERS SUITABLE FOR EVALUATION OF ITS QUALITY

S u m m a r y

The problems connected with the need to establish the principles of denomination and classification of bovine meat, occurring in market were discussed. The problem concerns the unequivocal distinguishing between the more expensive veal and cheaper beef. The definitions of veal and beef, as being usually employed in common name and those ones appearing in documents differ significantly, especially due to the selection of criteria as well as lack of common agreement as to the unequivocal model, describing the preferences of consumers. The attempts were undertaken with the aim to evaluate the suitability of different acceptable criteria for differentiation between veal and beef. The evaluation of the state of maturity of bone system seemed to be the best criterion. To differentiate between calves and young cattle the meat of which will be treated as beef, the boundary, easily measurable body weight (ante-slaughter), as arbitrarily determined and established in the EU rules, per 300 kg (carcass weight = 185 kg) will have more practical suitability, as compared to the non-checkable age of animals, resulting only from documents. For consumers, consistency and palatability of culinary processed meat will be probably the most important criteria of evaluation. In case of retail purchase, the appearance of commercial elements and colour of raw meat will be the decisive factors.

Key words: standardization, nomenclature, veal, beef, quality