Due to the strong public initiative in Europe and increased regulator focus to mitigate pain, surgical castration of pigs is being gradually abandoned, while the importance of other sex categories like entire males (EM) and immunocastrates (IC) increases. Although beneficial for animal welfare and economics, their use also brings forward several quality problems. Besides the occurrence of boar taint in EM, these include excessive carcass leanness, softer fat, meat color and pH deviations, inferior water holding capacity and increased meat toughness. In this paper, the raw material differences between the male sex categories and their influence on product quality are reviewed, and possible solutions are presented. Using EM for dried or thermally processed products may result in lower processing yields and inferior sensory quality, which may partially be prevented by applying specific processing adaptations. Immunocastration is a viable solution, especially when prolonging the vaccination to slaughter interval. Low to medium levels of boar taint can be effectively managed in most of the meat products, applying procedures like cooking, microbial inoculation or masking (by spices and especially smoking), while highly tainted material can be valorized only by combining various methods and/or with dilution of the tainted meat.

The antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of Cantharellus cibarius decoction and the effect of mushroom addition on the physicochemical and microbiological properties of frankfurters during refrigerated storage were studied. Mushroom addition significantly reduced (p < 0.05) the formation of total aerobic mesophilic bacteria during storage. Regarding the texture, there was no negative effect in frankfurters with the mushroom added, compared to the control group of sausages. Generally, C. cibarius can be used as a natural ingredient in order to prevent the growth of microorganisms in cooked pork sausages, causing an extension in shelf life during chilled storage.

The current research was undertaken to estimate the in vitro antioxidant activity of Cantharellus cibarius mushroom extracted by boiling in water for 30 minutes. Several previous studies have shown that the addition of edible mushrooms in meat products affects the reduction of lipid oxidation and prolongs the shelf-life of the final products. Antioxidant capacity of C. cibarius was measured using the following methods: reducing power ability, lipid peroxidation assay, cupric ion reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC) and DPPH free radical scavenging activity. Reducing power and antioxidant activity assays of C. cibarius hot water extract showed low antioxidant activity. CUPRAC assay demonstrated positive effect only at the concentration of 10 mg/mL, whereas DPPH radical scavenging activity showed moderate antioxidant activity in comparison with culinary-medicinal mushrooms, with the effective concentration (EC₅₀) from 7.41 mg/mL.