LAUSR

Known all over the world, caviar is a luxurious food with health-promoting properties (23, 29). The raw material for caviar production consists of egg cells (oocytes) of fish, in breeding terminology referred to as roe. Commission Regulation no. 865/2006 defines caviar as “unfertilised dead processed eggs from all Acipenseriformes species, also known as roe” (24). In light of the above, the term is restricted to salted roe of fish from species belonging to the order Acipenseriformes, commonly called black caviar or true caviar. The growing demand for caviar and the simultaneous decrease in production of black caviar are two reasons behind the search for alternative forms of this product. Caviar products currently available on the market divide into several categories, depending on the type of the raw material. One of these consists of caviar substitutes, which can further be divided into two groups: caviar substitutes produced from eggs of fish other than those from the sturgeon family, and substitutes produced from eggs of species other than fish (4). Such substitutes are produced from eggs of over 38 fish species and 3 other animal species (4). An example of a substitute produced from eggs of a species other than fish is the so-called white caviar, produced from eggs of garden snails (Cornu aspersum) (4). In Poland, these snails are bred under farm conditions, and the main edible material obtained from them is known as snail meat (20). Substitutes produced from snail eggs differ from traditional caviar and caviar substitutes containing roe of other fish mainly in colour, grain size, and taste. The eggs of garden snails are spherical, and the diameter of a single egg is 3-6 mm; they are milky-white, frosted, and non-translucent (27). Their taste is described as earthy-nut or mushroom-oak (15). Nutritional value of a new type of substitute caviar