Meat quality evaluation

Ozutsumi, K., Nade, T., Watanabe, H., Tsujimoto, K., Aoki, Y., and Aso, H. 1996. Non-destructive, ultrasonic evaluation of meat quality in live Japanese black steers from coloured images produced by a new ultrasonic scanner. Meat Sci. 43, 61-69. 

Various applications of impedance spectroscopy have been described in food engineering, such as monitorization of yogurt processing [39], salt and moisture measurement in salmon fillets [40], and testing of meat quality [41], A relevant example is the construction of a low-cost and nondestructive system to evaluate the salt levels in food based on a punctual measurement of the impedance in the samples. A coaxial electrode, consisted of an isolated wire inserted into a hollow needle, facilitating the placement inside the food sample, was used (Figure 1.5). Furthermore, the impedance modulus and phase values obtained for each frequency were processed using PLS in order to estimate and predict the salt content in minced pork meat [42],... 

This system works in the transflectance mode, with a penetration depth of around 20-25 mm. The capacity of the system is about 60 fillets per second. The same company developed another application designed to evaluate the amount of edible meat in live crabs a correlation as high as 0.96 has been attained [62]. Since 2008, most of the development work in Qvision AS has been focused on assessing meat quality. 

Hernandez-Jover et al. (1997) proposed that the combined total content of putrescine, cadaverine, histamine and tyramine could be used as an index to evaluate meat freshness, where a value of 5.0 pg per g or less is considered high quality. 

While these methods can provide useful information for determining the functional performance of Ingredients used in food, the criteria for quality must be established on the final product thus, dough must be baked into bread and meat analogues cooked and these foods subjected to organoleptic evaluation for texture. 

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