Histological characterisation of the effect of added salt in fresh beef sausage

The EU regulation (EC) n° 853/2004 on the hygiene of products of animal origin which applies from January 1st, 2006 assigns meat preparations to meat if the product has undergone a process sufficient to modify ther internal muscle fibre structure of the meat. Therefore histology was used in this study to characterise changes in the muscle fibre structure of fresh beef sausages due to the addition of salt and to try to assign products to the EU-definitions.