Why is duck meat often mixed into mutton rolls? Here are some tips on how to identify adulterated mutton

If we were to select the "top streamers" in the animal world this year, Yaya would probably be among the top few.

First there was the "rat head and duck neck" incident,

Later, many well-known catering brands "sold duck meat under the guise of sheep meat".

Yaya can be called the strongest substitute in the food world.

Lamb, but also duck, beef and pork

Recently, a sub-brand of a well-known catering brand, hot pot, was exposed to be "selling duck meat under the guise of lamb", which caused heated discussions. A video blogger posted a video on social networks saying that a hot pot restaurant of the brand sold "fake lamb" at a price of about 80 yuan per catty. The blogger said that he bought a total of 6 boxes of meat ingredients in the store, and 4 boxes of "high-calcium lamb rolls" were found to contain duck ingredients by the testing agency. The Chaoyang District Market Supervision Bureau of Beijing reported that after inspection by the testing agency, sheep-derived, bovine-derived and duck-derived ingredients were detected in 2 kinds of selected lamb raw material samples, including the high-calcium lamb rolls involved. In response, the catering company said that it would pay 8.354 million yuan to customers who had consumed lamb rolls in the store.

The incident of "mutton being accused of being mixed with duck meat" is not an isolated case. Just at the beginning of last month, it was revealed that the mutton rolls sold in many stores of a well-known brand of Malatang were "mixed with pork and duck meat."

Recently, a canteen of Inner Mongolia University was found to have used duck meat as beef or mutton to cook dishes and provide catering services at multiple stalls since March 2023 due to reports.

Yaya, I am the best at pretending to be a sheep

Why is it easy for duck meat to be mixed into mutton?

Zhong Kai, a member of the Standing Committee of the Health Communication Branch of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, said that in terms of cost, duck meat is cheaper, and in terms of texture, it is similar to mutton.

"The taste of mutton is stronger, which can easily overwhelm the taste of duck. A thin slice is put into the mouth very quickly after being rinsed in the pot, so it is not easy to notice," said Wang Leijun, a national first-level nutritionist.

So do we just have to let the "mutton-flavored duck meat" be served? In fact, there are some ways to identify it if we want to do it carefully.

First of all, a single piece of mutton cannot be adulterated, so adulteration is concentrated in meat products that need to be reprocessed, such as mutton rolls. When two different pieces of meat are mixed together, even if they are pressed tightly, the fat and lean meat are easy to separate, and they are easy to fall apart after being put into the pot;

In addition, mutton is lighter in color, while duck meat is darker red, so it is easier to distinguish them once they are blanched in the pan.