Livestock Products Processing
Milk Products
After many years of studies, the Institute finally discovered that there were differences in fluorescence spectra between fresh milk and reconstituted milk. The results can be used to identify whether market fresh milk containing reconstituted milk or not. Then the problem of unfair trade can be excluded and the profit of dairy farmers and their milk will be protected. To improve milk utilization and its value, oligosaccharide of high added value was produced from milk lactose by enzyme technology. Also, for manufacturing high quality yogurt, Bifidobacterium longum, CCRC 14605, was obtained from screening many strains according to the characters of acid production, growing tolerance to oxygen and property stability etc. Therefore yogurt with pleasing taste to the consumers was manufactured by use of a mixed starter containing B. longum CCRC 14605 and other lacate-producing bacteria. Besides, the study to compare the nutritional value of fresh milk with long life preserved milk indicated that the nutritional value of the latter was 80% that of the former. The recent study carried out at the Institute showed that heat stability of goat milk was lower than that of dairy milk.
Based on this character, a testing method for fresh goat milk was developed and used in trade between the milk goat farmers and the processing companies at the collecting stations. The trials of making goat milk yoghurt was an attempt to exploit varieties of goat milk products. To protect the consumer's benefits, electrophoresis was used for identifying goat milk proteins to determine whether goat milk was contaminated with dairy milk or not.
Meat Products
As their income is increasing, our fellow-countrymen have become more and more aware of the diversification and the needs of safety as well as healthiness of their foods. One of main research carried out at the Institute was technological improvement on manufacturing traditional products by the application of scientific methods in formulation, manufacturing, packaging and storage. The products improved are Chinese bacon, sausage, salted duck, camphor tea duck, Cantonese roasted pork, dried shredded pork, fried shredded pork, dried sliced meat, etc. Another main research has been meat quality improvement on culled livestock and spent poultry, either to produce new products or to improve the original ones. For examples: with addition of konjac to replace part of pork fat in producing low-fat Chinese style sausage, not only the product was significantly lower in fat and energy content, but it also retained its original flavor and texture. In order to control nitrite residues in sausages, the Institute recommended in 1975~1981 that the addition of nitrite be 100 ppm with combination of 150-300 ppm ascorbic acid. The effects of cure color and preservation were satisfactory. New products were developed in processing duck meat such as: smoked duck steak from duck breast or bone-associated drumsticks, and reconstituted smoked duck steak from deboned duck drumsticks.
These new products were different from the traditional ones and were ready to eat. Then, the processing technologies have been transferred to the industry and the products were put on the market. Besides, recent investigation into carcass and carcass traits, and chemical contents of spent egg-laying Tsaiya Duck, has resulted in developing ready-to-eat products, including roasted and preserved whole duck, reconstituted dry duck meat, and preserved whole duck.
Egg Products Processing
From the studies over several years, the Institute has developed a new process of making alkaline egg without adding heavy metals. Recently the Inspection Center of the Heavy Metals Content in alkaline egg was established at I-Lan Branch Station, and CIS certified alkaline eggs were pushed forward. The chances to process alkaline eggs without adding heavy metals were improved by 20%, owing to controlled temperature in pickling, followed by dipping into warm water at 65~70℃ for 20 minutes. Other egg products studies led to the development of new techniques also. One study was to manufacture salted duck eggs from fresh yolk directly. The chief factors, the mechanism of yolk granulation and gelatinization in salting process, and the veracity of salt permeability and the final concentration proved by synthetic egg white with shell method were studied. Next study was to develop techniques of extracting egg yolk oil at low temperature, and extracting crude lecithin from chicken egg yolk by precipitation with acetone and repeated dissolution with ethanol and petroleum ether. Another study was to imitate common mullet's roe caviar from salted egg yolk. In addition, the Institute developed the methodologies for separation and purification of heparin from hog lung by gel and ion exchange chromatography and this procedure was granted patent for 15 years by the Patent Office of R.O.C.