Our reporter Li Jian
"Send ducks during the summer season, and each family is free from diseases", which means that eating in season during the summer season, and sharing the sweet and warm duck meat with the neighbors can relieve the "dryness" in autumn, prevent diseases and improve the health.
It is said that the ducks before and after the end of summer are the plumpest.
What are the advantages of duck meat worthy of neighbors?
Can the delicious duck neck be eaten often?
Does "fat duck" mean that ducks are fatty and unhealthy?
If you have these questions about a duck, you might as well hear from the experts.
Purchase: look at color, smell and taste
"There are three or two peach blossoms outside the bamboo, the spring river plumbing the duck prophet" "Ducks swim side by side in the past, don't come to see the lotus blossoms in autumn"... From ancient times to the present, from spring to autumn, ducks have been included in paintings and poems with high frequency waterfowl.
Duck is not only a common description object in ancient poems, but also a delicacy of common people.
my country is the first area to domesticate domestic ducks. According to the records of "Wu Wang built a city to raise ducks" in the Spring and Autumn Period in "Wu Di Ji", the history of domestic duck domestication can be traced back to about 2,200 years ago.
During the Han Dynasty, the domestic duck had become one of the three major poultry (chicken, duck, and goose).
Zang Mingwu, deputy chief engineer of China Meat Food Research Center, said in an interview with a reporter from China Consumer News that traditional Chinese medicine believes that duck meat is cold and cool, nourishes yin and nourishes the stomach, clears the lungs and nourishes blood, and diureses water to reduce swelling. Deficiency, sterilizing heat, suitable for people with heat and anger in the body.
According to this, the folks have a saying that eating duck in autumn can eliminate autumn dryness.
Modern nutritional research shows that duck meat contains more protein, B vitamins and vitamin E, and also contains niacin, riboflavin and thiamine and other healthy nutrients.
How to choose high-quality duck meat?
Zang Mingwu advises consumers to pay attention to the following three points:
Appearance of color: A good duck has a smooth surface and is milky white, and the cut surface is rose-colored after being cut.
If the surface of the duck skin is slightly oily, light red or light yellow, and the inner section is dark red, it indicates that the quality of the duck is poor.
If there is a lot of oil on the body surface, the color is dark red or dark yellow, and the muscle section is gray-white, light green or light red, it means that the duck meat has deteriorated.
Smell: Good raw duck smells without peculiar smell, while cooked duck is full of fragrance; average quality duck has a faint musty smell in the abdominal cavity; and if you smell a strong peculiar smell, it also means that the duck is very stale or even stale. spoiled.
Shape identification: fresh and high-quality ducks are generally flat-round in shape, with firm legs, with raised breast meat, and salt frost can be clearly seen on the inner wall of the abdominal cavity; on the contrary, if the duck meat is soft to the touch If the abdominal cavity is damp or mildewed, the quality of the duck is poor, the muscles of the spoiled duck are soft and sticky to the touch, and there are a lot of mildew spots in the abdominal cavity.
Edible: Duck neck is delicious but should not be eaten too much
Roast duck, white-cut duck, lemon duck, lotus leaf duck, walnut duck, camphor tea duck, ginger duck... From south to north, people eat duck in countless ways, and the cooking methods also have regional food culture characteristics.
In addition to eating the whole duck, people also disassemble the duck into duck goods such as duck head, duck neck, duck intestines, etc., and try their best to make different flavors of food.
However, because duck has more fat in poultry than chicken, many people keep a "fat duck" at a distance, worrying that its fat is harmful to health.
Zang Mingwu said that the fat content of duck is about 19.70 grams/100 grams.
Although higher than chicken, it is lower than pork.
Studies have shown that the fat quality of duck meat is the best among poultry. The proportion of saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids is close to the ideal value, and the chemical composition is similar to olive oil, which is very beneficial to the human body.
Zang Mingwu further explained that in fact, fat also has "good and bad" points.
The so-called "bad fat" refers to saturated fatty acids, which accumulate in every corner of the human body and are difficult to eliminate; while "good fat" refers to polyunsaturated fatty acids and low-level saturated fatty acids, which can effectively help the human body consume bad fats. Fat is absorbed by the body into nutrients and transported to various organs.
Importantly, "good fats" cannot be synthesized by the human body and can only be supplemented by dietary supplements.
Therefore, it is very healthy to eat more duck meat instead of other meat dishes in daily life.
Some parts of ducks should not be eaten more: First, duck skin, which is high in fat and mostly saturated fat, should be reduced in intake.
The second is the duck neck. There are very few lymph nodes and abundant thymus glands on the duck neck, that is, the small bumps on the duck neck visible to the naked eye.
Lymph nodes are the main site of the immune response and should not be eaten.
The main function of the gland is to induce hematopoietic stem cells to differentiate into mature T cells without immune function, which are generally regulated by a variety of hormones, and also secrete thymic hormones.
Therefore, as a delicacy, duck neck is not harmful to be eaten occasionally or in small amounts, but frequent or excessive consumption is not recommended.
Special attention should be paid to the fact that smoked and roasted duck meat can produce substances such as benzopyrene and heterocyclic amine after processing, which has a certain carcinogenic effect and should not be eaten for a long time.
Storage: Keep refrigerated and frozen
Duck meat has high nutritional value, but it is also prone to spoilage.
Especially raw duck meat, because of the action of microorganisms, it may deteriorate in 24 hours under the temperature condition of 10 ℃ without ventilation.
How to store raw duck meat that can't be eaten for a while?
In the past, some rural areas in my country often used "local methods" such as smoking, waxing, wind, and pickling for processing and storage.
From a more nutritious and healthier point of view, Zang Mingwu recommends that consumers try the following two ways to preserve:
Refrigerated storage: The purchased duck meat should be treated with internal organs, washed to remove blood, and then chopped, washed, dried, and packed in a fresh-keeping bag, and placed in the refrigerator.
This can keep for about 3-5 days.
Frozen storage: If it needs to be stored for a long time, it should be sealed and placed in the freezer, so that the duck will not deteriorate for several months.
It should be emphasized that some people are used to blanching and freezing duck meat, thinking that it is cleaner and hygienic, but in fact it will make the duck taste very old.
Cooked duck bought from outside should be eaten as much as possible. If there is any leftover, it can be covered with plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator. When refrigerating, pay attention to separate raw and cooked ducks, meat and vegetables, and eat them as soon as possible.
If stored for too long, microorganisms multiply rapidly, which may lead to deterioration.
Taking roast duck as an example, some studies have shown that after the duck meat is stored for 5 days, the flora structure will change significantly.
Zang Mingwu believes that although the premise of ensuring that the refrigerator is clean and the refrigeration method is correct can help delay the process, from the perspective of health and safety, cooked duck meat should not be stored for too long.