AVALIAÇÃO DA QUALIDADE DA CARNE FRESCA COMERCIALIZADA EM AÇOUGUES DA CIDADE DE CASTANHAL - PARÁ.

Beef is a source of vitamins and nutrients for humans and in Brazil, there is a large production and demand for this product. From this, the objective of this work was to evaluate the quality of fresh beef, whole and ground, sold in the main butchers in the municipality of Castanhal - PA. Physicochemical analyses such as pH, Eber test for ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, filtration test, cooking test, and detection of sodium sulfite were performed. Forty-eight samples of meat, of 250 g each, were collected on alternate days, corresponding to 24 samples of whole cut and 24 samples of ground meat, performed in 3 repetitions. All samples were negative; 81.25% were positive for hydrogen sulfide; in the cooking test, 87.5% presented normal meat conditions and 12.5% presented suspect conditions; in infiltration, 39.58% of the samples were in medium conservation conditions and 60.41% were in suspect meat conditions; in the detection of sodium sulfite, 100% of the samples tested negative. In the pH results, the mean values ranged from 5.67-6.3 in the whole samples and 5.61-6.67 in the ground samples, showing a significant difference at the 5% significance level, in samples one, whole, and ground, by ANO-VA and Tukey's test. Based on the results found, it was observed that the quality of fresh beef is not marketed properly in the city's establishments, requiring more attention from inspection agencies and the consumer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]