Physicochemical and sensory characteristics of poultry and eggs

Abstract

The poultry sector can be considered one of the most developed and technified of world agriculture. Advances in genetic improvement together with the development of nutrition, health and management techniques, resulted in the current poultry farming, high efficiency and organization in order to produce animal protein of high biological value for human consumption at low cost. Commercial egg is a product of an efficient biological transformation made by laying hen and is one of the most complete foods that exists is composed of proteins, lipids, vitamins and minerals. The egg composition depends on several factors. It notes that the bird's age affects only the egg size and shell quality, but not in its composition. The protein composition of the diet influences, fatty acids and cholesterol content of the yolk. In turn, when it comes to poultry coming soon in mind the white meat, with high humidity and protein obtained from chickens raised in conventional farming systems, so, high density and rapid growth. However, poultry meat is any arising meat from poultry, and therefore the characteristics of the meat initially depend other species and other factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic production, manipulated or not in order to reach standards quality as the sensory, chemical and physical characteristics. So that the quality of poultry products is maintained, all links in the chain, from the hatchery eggs to the large supermarket chains, must remain united so that the consumer has at his table eggs and meat with desirable sensory characteristics and free of waste and contaminants. Thus, we present a review on the physicochemical and sensory characteristics of poultry and eggs.