| abstract |
Sources of meat having a high fat content, such as meat trimmings, are processed in a manner by which meat products prepared therefrom have a dramatically reduced fat content while retaining the desirable functionality of the unprocessed meat sources. The fat-containing meat trimmings are comminuted, heated and centrifuged under specific processing conditions in order to provide unformulated raw reduced fat meat having a fat content of not greater than about ten percent by weight while having excellent functionality. The unformulated reduced fat meat is formable into a variety of meat products, including wieners, sausages and hamburger patties, thereby providing products having taste, appearance, texture and other qualities which are substantially indistinguishable from products prepared from high fat unformulated raw materials but which have dramatically reduced fat contents. |