Abstract

Fraudulent imitation and adultery of meat and meat products are fooling the consumers, jeopardizing their health, economical situation and potentially causing harm to religious beliefs. The aim of this project was to search for the existence of such fraudulent imitations and adulteries within processed meat products across different sale points (them being markets) found within 11 municipalities of the Marmara Regionusing PCR procedures. According to the findings gathered during the study, 25 of the collected samples (4.54%) contained poultry DNA, 5 of them (0.90%) contained house fly DNA, 6 of them (1.09%) contained sheep DNA, 2 of them (0.36%) contained cockroach DNA, 2 of them (0.36%) contained horse DNA and 4 of them (in chicken sausages/0.72%) contained bovine DNA as foreign species. Again our findings showed that, for samples not suitable for human consumption in relation to their Escherichia coli parameter of total coliform bacteria quantity, highest value was found within beef salami and chicken sausage. Such findings show significant differences between unadulterated/non-fraudulent products that are not suitable for human consumption and adulterated/fraudulent products, in terms of microbiological risks that can be brought upon the consumer. In the light of these findings, it can be said that adultery and fraudulent imitation can end up seriously jeopardizing the consumer health.