Assessment of adulteration in fresh minced beef and cooked kofta by different methods

Concerns about food fraud are significant from a public health, legal, economic, and religious perspective. We randomly selected forty samples of fresh minced beef and cooked kofta (twenty of each) from various butcher shops and restaurants in the Gharbia governorate, Egypt. Tests were done on the samples to see if they had been tampered with adding illegal meat were sulfuric acid heating test, precipitation test and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Out of the total number of samples, 18 (90%) of the fresh minced beef and 15 (75%) of the cooked kofta were found to be free of adulteration. Two samples of raw minced beef (10%) and four samples of cooked kofta (20%) included horse meat. In cooked kofta, one sample (5%) contained dog meat. All examined samples were free from pork meat. Investigation of meat products adulteration with different species is very important from food safety, and food security point of views.