First of all, we must figure out what kind of lamb is delicious. Whether it is good or not is a subjective evaluation and feeling of people, but there is a set of objective indicators for evaluating lamb and other meat products. These indicators have physical characteristics, including the color of meat, tenderness (shear force), water holding capacity, but also include some nutritional (chemical composition) indicators, including moisture, protein, fat (fatty acids) and so on.
Through the laboratory's physical properties and chemical nutrition analysis of lamb, it is possible to generally evaluate whether lamb or other meat products can give consumers a good eating experience. For example, the laboratory determines the shear force of lamb being cut by a texture meter, which can simulate the force of human teeth cutting and chewing lamb. The smaller the shearing force, the greater the tenderness, the higher the quality of the lamb. For another example, the standard meat sample is steamed in hot water, and the weight loss of the meat sample after the central temperature reaches 80 ° C is the cooking loss. The smaller the loss of cooking, the stronger the holding of the lamb and the more juicy it is. When we taste a piece of lamb, tenderness, juiciness, flavor, etc., constitute the basic evaluation of people's "good or bad" lamb. Of course, the way the cooking process is also important and has a decisive impact on the taste of the lamb that is sent into the mouth, but this has nothing to do with the quality and quality of the lamb itself.
Wind blowing grass is livestock and sheep
First of all, the quality of lamb is directly related to the breed of sheep. Take Xinjiang, for example. Xinjiang is rich in meat wool and goat breeds, and has both meat and fluff. Local breeds include Hetian sheep, Duolang sheep, Cele black sheep, Kazakh sheep, Xinjiang goats, etc., and the breeds cultivated through genetic breeding technology include Xinjiang fine wool sheep, Xinjiang lamb skin sheep, Chinese Merino sheep, Xinji fine wool sheep, Xinjiang southern Xinjiang cashmere goats and so on. These excellent meat sheep breeds can bring a rich and diverse range of lamb products. Studies have shown that local breeding sheep (Dolang sheep, Kirgiz sheep, Hotan sheep, Karakul sheep) in the southern Xinjiang region have been studied. Comprehensive determination and analysis of nutrient content in its meat products. The study found that these four kinds of lamb have the characteristics of moderate moisture content, rich protein content, high fat content, rich mineral content, etc., and contain eight kinds of essential amino acids, and the content and composition of amino acids are also very reasonable.
It is not enough to have a good breed of sheep, the living environment, breeding and fattening conditions of sheep must be excellent. The unique natural conditions of grazing areas, including drinking water, feed and forage, etc. will have an impact on the quality of lamb. It is critical that sheep are able to graze freely and graze forage. Xinjiang is a key grassland pastoral area in the country, and grassland accounts for 28.83% of the national land area. More than 70% of Xinjiang's livestock products come from natural grasslands. Xinjiang sheep are mainly based on natural grazing, supplemented by house feeding and fattening. The meat obtained by grazing and fattening is better than lambs raised through grain houses, because grazing sheep have more exercise than sheep in houses, have thick muscle fibers, and chew them up much better. The natural grazing sheep are in a free, laid-back, unrestrained mood and much better health. This is the same as the relationship between human mood and health. Healthy sheep have higher antioxidant levels, and many of the indicators of lamb obtained after slaughter (color and moisture retention) increase with the improvement of the body's antioxidant characteristics.
By eating grass, sheep can talk about the transfer of nutrients from pasture to sheep
Sheep graze on natural pasture. Grazing and feeding grasses also contain some flavor precursors. Precursor substances include water-soluble substances such as sugars, amino acids, nucleotides, thiamines, etc., as well as fat-soluble substances including various fatty acids. These precursor substances are fed into lambs by lambs and eventually deposited in lamb muscle tissue. After cooking at high temperature, these precursor substances will be heated to produce chemical reactions to form aldehydes, esters, alcohols, etc., these volatile substances eventually give people a rich, rich taste, by stimulating people's oral epithelial cells to bring people a sense of pleasure.
For example, there are many forages in natural grasslands that contain unsaturated fatty acids, including n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids that are beneficial to human health and can remove vascular garbage. These fatty acids are deposited in the muscles after being ingested by lambs. Studies have shown that the amount of linolenic acid in natural pastures is significantly positively correlated with the amount of linolenic acid in lamb muscle. People eat lamb not only to obtain these essential fatty acids, but also because these fatty acids can be converted into richer volatile substances and enjoy better flavor. Studies have shown that after sheep eat sand onion and ground pepper pasture, the content of unsaturated fatty acids (oleic acid) and tryptophan in lamb increases, which increases the content of flavor precursor substances in lamb. Shallots and peppers are also common pasture varieties on ranch.
Finally, pasture contains some natural medicinal actives, including plant saponins, plant polyphenols, carotenoids, phytoflavonoids, triterpenoids and so on. A large number of biological studies have found that the natural bioactive substances in these pastures have the antioxidant properties of improving animals, promoting animal health, and regulating muscle fatty acids, which are related to the quality of Xinjiang lamb. For example, licorice and alfalfa are important natural pasture varieties in Xinjiang. Studies have shown that the flavonoids in licorice and the saponins in alfalfa have the effect of improving the quality of lamb, improving color and improving water retention, which is related to its promotion of the health level of sheep.
The key to natural pasture resources and abundant drinking water is to make the grazing of mutton of relatively high quality. Despite the good quality of grazing mutton, the ecological damage of pastoral grasslands is becoming more and more serious, and the problem of grassland desertification is prominent, and the demand for mutton in pastoral areas is increasing. Therefore, while ensuring the production of high-quality mutton, the protection of the grassland ecological environment and the improvement of meat and sheep breeding technology are major problems that today's animal husbandry scientists need to solve.