Proteins of animal origin are of great importance for the healthy diet of humans. Meats are an important source of amino acids and vitamins that cannot be synthesized by the body. If a comparison is made with the same amount of vegetable proteins, animal proteins have a higher amount of essential amino acids. Essential fatty acids are the fatty acids that humans and animals need to take from outside to survive and cannot be synthesized in the body.

Inadequate consumption of animal proteins affects all body functions, especially the nervous and immune systems. A healthy person should meet almost half of his daily protein needs from proteins of animal origin.

Meat and meat products are so important in human health care, but when the population increases and the need for meat increases, as well as price increases, malicious people try to reduce the price by mixing impurities. This situation also creates an unfair competition environment.

The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock issued the Turkish Food Codex Communiqué on Meat and Meat Products (Communiqué No: 2012 / 74) in order to prevent this situation and protect the rights and health of consumers. This Communiqué covers the principles for the production, preservation, packaging and placing on the market of raw meat and prepared meat mixtures and meat products by appropriate techniques. According to the provisions of the aforementioned communiqué, the type or species of butchery used in the preparation of meat and meat products shall be indicated on the label of the products. In these meat products, red and white meats should not be mixed with each other. In addition, meat and meat products obtained from unsuitable animals (eg pork) should also be identified for those who are sensitive to this in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Reliable and rapid analysis methods have been developed in the laboratories to detect tricks for the use of different types of meat in food products. For example, it is only possible to determine the origin of the meats or whether they have been cheated by morphological, immunological, electrophoretic, genetic and serological methods. In this context, ELISA tests (Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay) is an immunological method in which the activity of an enzyme that specifically binds to the antigen is examined using the relationship between antibody and antigen. SDS-PAGE analysis, which is based on the separation of proteins in electrical field according to molecular weights, is an electrophoretic method.

Among the various methods, the most reliable, high quality and sensitive results are the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method, which is used for searching DNA of the species in food products. This method is based on the principle of reproduction of a particular region of DNA using enzymes.

The accuracy of species analysis must be checked at each stage. Any contamination can cause unexpected results. In addition, the laboratory staff performing the analysis must strictly adhere to the working conditions and methods.

In the advanced laboratories, the following analyzes are basically performed within the scope of species analysis:

• Determination of meat species (ELISA) (for each species)
• Determination of meat and milk species (for each species) (Real Time-PCR and DNA microarray)
• Determination of meat species (serological) (for each species)
• Analysis of different tissue types in meat and meat products

Market inspections on meat and meat products are of great importance both for the protection of human health and prevention of frauds and for the prevention of public trust in food products. It is recommended that enterprises that want to do their job correctly should carefully clean the points that may be contaminated between species in production processes and prove this situation with appropriate analysis methods.

Species analysis studies conducted in advanced laboratories are based on standards published by domestic and foreign organizations.