Fatty acids composition of Croatian and Slovenian traditional dry-cured meat products

godina XVIII (2016.) ■ siječanj veljača ■ broj 1 ■ MESO ■ 89 INTRODUCTION In the European countries there is a growing trend of production and consumption of traditional meat products. Consequently, intense researches of their dietary and nutritional value are performed. It is known that manufacturing of traditional meat products is not standardized and is generally monitored subjectively without strict control of the characteristics required for these products, for instance casing size, processing parameters, such as temperature, relative humidity, and airow rates, as also smoking conditions (Fernández-Fernández et al., 2002). Hundreds of European meat products are nowadays protected with one of three signs: PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) and TSG (Traditional Speciality Guaranteed), established to promote and protect the names of quality products. Researches of traditional meat products contribute to the standardization, quality assurance of these products and therefore protection of consumers. Because of geographical and climatic specics, history and various cultural inuences Croatia and Slovenia also have a large number of traditional meat products, which in last few decades become recognizable brands and an integral part of specic tourist o‚er. Among them frequently produced and consumed are prosciuttos, hams, fermented sausages and other dry-cured meats, produced in di‚erent regions of these countries according to traditional receipts in the households as also by the meat industries. From the nutritional point of view, dry-cured meat products are an important source of proteins of high biological value (Beriain et al., 2000) but at the same time it is known that this type of products present some Fatty acids composition of Croatian and Slovenian traditional dry-cured meat products