DETERMINING THE BOILING DOWN OF SNAIL MEAT

Abstract

The increase of food production is one of the main problems facing the agro-industrial complex of
Ukraine in modern conditions. It is possible that in the near future a new business will appear in Ukraine
connected with the production of snails on the industrial basis. Thus, determining the weight loss of food
snail meat is the important issue. The studies were carried out on snails of Helix pomatia, Helix aspersa
maxima and Helix aspersa muller species. The selected samples of meat were cooked for different periods of
time from the moment of boiling. At the end of cooking, the difference between raw meat and boiled meat
was considered to be the meat loss. Before cooking, all meat samples were weighed. The reliability of the
obtained data was calculated using the “Sadovsky” computer program by determining the arithmetic mean
(M) and its error (m) and analyzed only between them, because such information is not available. The following
dependence was established: the smaller the sample of meat was, the greater was the loss, and the
more time it took to boil the meat, the percentage of meat loss was also greater. The meat of all the three
experimental snail species began to lose weight in 30 minutes and the percentage of loss ranged from
34.37 % to 37.66 %. It was found that the percentage of Helix pomatia snail meat loss was 38.93 % on the
average, while Helix aspersa muller snail meat was 40.86% and Helix aspersa maxima was 42.78 %. Significant
fluctuations of the meat weight loss during boiling were detected for all the investigated types of snails.
We established that after 90 minutes of boiling snail meat taken for the experiment, as compared with the
boiling time of 30 and 60 minutes, the data concerning the percentage of loss differed. Thus, the lowest percentage
of loss in ready-to-eat snail meat was in Helix pomatia – 38.93 %, and the largest – 42.78 % was
observed in Helix aspersa maxima. According to our data it can be maintained that the percentage of meat
loss of the experimental snail species as compared with the raw meat varies within the following limits: in 30
minutes (in %) by 37.66:34.37:37.51 correspondingly; in 60 minutes (in %) by 38.06:39.71:39.24, respectively,
and for 90 minutes (in %) at 38.93:42.78:40.86, correspondingly.