Rapid inspection method for investigating the heat processing conditions employed for chicken meat using Raman spectroscopy

In Japan, the imports of meat products have been increasing every year. Heat processing of meat is the current standard method for ensuring domestic animal health, particularly in case of meat products from areas where infectious diseases are known to have occurred in domestic animals. The Animal Quarantine Service needs to establish a method that detects the temperature at which the meat has been heat-processed (endpoint temperature) to ensure that the standard protocol is followed at the production location. Here, we developed a Raman spectroscopy and multivariate statistics (viz. multivariate curve resolution (MCR))-based simple and rapid method for accurately estimating the end point temperature. We showed that the temperature-dependent secondary structure modification of proteins can serve as an accurate indicator of the temperature of heat processing. This methodology can be easily automated for effective utilization by someone who is not an expert in spectroscopy. We envisage a wider application of this method in food analysis, although the present research investigated the application of this method in chicken meat heat processing analysis.

Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy for Quality Assessment of Meat and Fish: A Review on Basic Principles, Measurement Methods, and Recent Advances

Electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), as an effective analytical technique for electrochemical system, has shown a wide application for food quality and safety assessment recently. Individual differences of livestock cause high variation in quality of raw meat and fish and their commercialized products. Therefore, in order to obtain the definite quality information and ensure the quality of each product, a fast and on-line detection technology is demanded to be developed to monitor product processing. EIS has advantages of being fast, nondestructive, inexpensive, and easily implemented and shows potential to develop on-line detecting instrument to replace traditional methods to realize time, cost, skilled persons saving and further quality grading. This review outlines the fundamental theories and two common measurement methods of EIS applied to biological tissue, summarizes its application specifically for quality assessment of meat and fish, and discusses challenges and future trends of EIS technology applied for meat and fish quality assessment.