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[EN] Sodium intake exceeds the nutritional recommendations in most industrialized countries becoming one concern for public health. This elimination or reduction is not simple due to its role in final food sensory, quality and safety. The aim of this work is to review the possibilities of magnesium ion, due to its healthy properties, to become a partial substitute of sodium in the production of fish and meat products, and a particular case for Spanish dry-cured ham and loin. Magnesium diffusion into different muscle based foods such as ham or loin, and its effect in the most important characteristics of the final product (microbiology, physico-chemical and sensory properties) has been analyzed. Results show that magnesium has more difficulty to penetrate inside the muscle and slightly modifies the water-holding capacity of proteins, their solubility and the enzymatic activity. Salty taste, bitterness and off-flavor are the most affected characteristics. However, these effects could be compensated by using longer post-salting periods and by employing masking agents. It is possible to reduce the sodium content in fish and meat products using magnesium as one of the ingredients, allowing to obtain new products with similar physicochemical characteristics and safety conditions., Grant AGL2007-65379-C02-01 & 02 and AGL2010-16305 from Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain) and FEDER funds are acknowledged.

HPLC methods based on hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) have been recently applied to the analysis of biochemical compounds, related to the quality, in meat and poultry as well as meat products like cooked ham and dry-cured ham. This type of chromatography has also been successfully used for the analysis of antibiotic residues in meat and poultry. HILIC chromatography has an increasing relevance for the analysis of polar compounds in foods due to its good retention without need for derivatisation. In general, HILIC-based methods have shown good performance for the analysis of polar biochemical compounds like dipeptides, creatine and creatinine, nucleotides and nucleosides, sphingolipids and residues, mainly antibiotics, in rather complex matrices such as muscles. Thus, this manuscript presents a review of recent applications of HILIC methods for the analysis of quality-related biochemical compounds and residues in meat, poultry and processed meats. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC., Grant AGL2007-65379-C02-01 from Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain) and FEDER funds are fully acknowledged. FPU Scholarship from Ministerio de Ciencia y Educacion (Spain) to L. M. and scholarship from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACyT) and Colegio de Postgraduados (Mexico) to A. S. H-C. are fully acknowledged. This work was performed under the Associated Unit IAD (UPV)-IATA (CSIC).