Editing Sausage casing (section)

=== Origin ===

Natural sausage casings are made from the [[Submucosa|sub-mucosa]] of the small intestine of meat animals,<ref name=usdaask>{{Cite web|url=https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/What-are-casings-made-of|title=AskUSDA|website=[[United States Department of Agriculture]]}}</ref> a layer of the [[intestine]] that consists mainly of naturally occurring collagen.<ref name=ripe>{{cite book |doi=10.1016/B978-0-12-384731-7.00137-9 |chapter=Sausage Casings |title=Encyclopedia of Meat Sciences |year=2014 |last1=Rust |first1=R.E. |last2=Knipe |first2=C.L. |pages=235–240 |isbn=9780123847348 }}</ref> In Western European cuisine and Chinese cuisine, most casings come from pigs, but elsewhere the intestines of sheep, goats, cattle and sometimes horses are also used. To prepare the intestines as casings, they are flushed, scraped and cleaned with water and salt by hand or with machinery; today they are primarily machine cleaned. The outer fat and the inner mucosa lining are removed during processing.<ref name=ripe /> They are salted to lower the water activity (which inhibits microbial growth) and preserve the casing.<ref name=ripe /> Natural casings have been used in the production of meat specialties for centuries and have remained virtually unchanged in function, appearance, and composition. US and EU [[organic food]] regulations only allow natural casings, which can be derived from non-organically raised animals as there are no large scale slaughter plants which handle and process only organic animals and sell their casings as certified organic casings. As a result, all large scale natural casing companies buy casings from around the world and send them to their selection facilities to be graded and packaged. There are four primary animal genera which are used to manufacture natural casings (although all [[mammal]]s raised for [[meat]] could potentially be used to produce natural casing): [[Cattle|cows]], [[pig]]s, and [[lamb and mutton|lambs]] and [[sheep]].