Formation Processes and Control Strategies of Hazardous Substances in Ready-To-Eat and Ready-To-Cook Meat Products

The ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook meat products industry has been undergoing rapid development in recent years. However, during the processing of ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook meat products, improper control of production conditions, such as temperature, humidity, and heating time, can easily trigger reactions such as the Maillard reaction, lipid oxidation, and thermal degradation. These reactions generate various harmful factors, such as heterocyclic amines (HAs), acrylamide (AM), trans fatty acids (TFAs), and other compounds, which can negatively impact human health. Currently, the application of emerging processing technologies can effectively reduce the level of production of harmful factors and achieve synergistic control. Particularly, high hydrostatic pressure is able to inhibit the formation of HAs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and AM, and ohmic heating can inhibit the production of PAHs, HAs, and biogenic amines. This review primarily analyzes the formation mechanisms and influencing factors of common harmful factors and explores the effects of different conditioning processing technologies on harmful factors and their elimination mechanisms. The goal is to balance the generation of flavor substances and the content of harmful factors during the thermal processing of meat products, providing a scientific reference for the safe production of ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook meat products.