A Challenge for Industry—to Transform Chicken Skin into Leather to Benefit Food Safety and Human Health

High cholesterol, obesity and cardiovascular diseases tend to accompany the economic development of a country. This occurs not only from increased supply of fatty foods, but also from ignorance and use of poor diets. It is known that the dietary habits of the different populations reflect a historical process of adaptation to the regional realities. Chicken skin is rich in cholesterol and the emergence of this in the blood depends on the composition of the diet, and increased consumption by the Brazilian population has been noted in the last few decades concurrently with increased poultry consumption. It is also known that the population consumes fried skin, which further impacts health. To restrict the use of the skin maybe through legislation was the best solution, but it would affect the productivity of the poultry sector negatively. In Brazil, per capita poultry consumption passed from 4 to 23 kg/year. A study was developed to reduce consumption of chicken skin while maintaining or enhancing poultry profitability by converting skin into treated leather. The collected data allowed inference of the economical viability and consumer benefits. The first stage of this work was the study of the economical variability and the skin transformation in treated leather. A second phase is planned to obtain representative analyses of skin nutritional content (cholesterol, fatty acids and triglycerides), to further quantify fats composition prior to cooking.