Nutritional and health-promoting aspects of poultry meat and its processed products

In view of the increasing public awareness of the relationship between healthy diet and prevention of many diseases, particularly civilisation-related diseases, producers are trying to focus consumers' attention on the health-promoting components found in poultry meat or introduced to final products. The health-promoting quality of poultry meat may be improved by undertaking certain animal management measures (genetic and nutritional factors), reducing undesirable components, adding individual biocomponents and applying appropriate technological measures. These include changing fatty acid profiles, increased content of bioactive protein and reduced content of sodium chloride, nitrates and nitrites. At present research is being conducted on methods to enrich the composition of meat and its processed products with bioactive substances such as vitamins, polyunsaturated fatty acids and other beneficial components, e.g. fibre.