Measuring and testing – Vibration – By mechanical waves
Patent
1995-08-07
1997-04-29
Raevis, Robert
Measuring and testing
Vibration
By mechanical waves
73599, 73646, 12866007, G01N 2908, A61B 1000
Patent
active
056251475
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to methods and apparatus for monitoring the eating quality of meat.
Many different techniques already exist for investigating meat carcasses to obtain information relating to their physical characteristics. These include techniques for measuring quality traits such as pH, colour, drip, and intramuscular fat as well as taste panel assessments.
Ultrasonic techniques are now widely used throughout the world to assess the body and carcass composition of farm livestock. Ultrasonic inspection of homogenised meat has contributed substantially to understanding the nature of the phenomena taking place when ultrasound is transmitted through tissue and has also generated the ideas for improved equipment for determining carcass composition. In the future that equipment is likely to be more widely used and could replace existing pulse-equipment as the equipment of choice for examining farm livestock.
Techniques for inspecting meat can be divided into different areas. These include techniques for looking at carcass composition or carcass quality (the fat:lean ratio); techniques for looking at muscle quality such as colour, fat content, wetness, and muscle structure (smooth/grainy); and techniques using taste panel assessments for determining eating quality which may be characterised as tenderness, juiciness/succulence, and flavour.
Many techniques exist for determining carcass composition and muscle quality. Thus, GB-A-2213263 discloses a method for determining body composition of an animal and in this case the technique is determining carcass composition.
EP-A-0523865 discloses another technique for monitoring carcass composition.
EP-A-0499765 describes an ultrasonic technique for obtaining information about a carcass and uses a correlation technique to compare the effects of the carcass on the ultrasound with a correlation table to indicate physical characteristics of the carcass including the thickness of meat layers, the thickness of fat layers, fleshiness, "fat marbling", or the meat/fat pattern, the structure of the meat fibres, the structure of connective tissue, the water content, the amount of PSE- and DFD-meat, and the ability of the meat body to bind the meat juice therein.
None of these techniques have been successful in predicting eating (or organoleptic) quality from the predetermined physical characteristics. Attempts have been made to predict eating quality as for example is described in De Vol, D. L., McKeith, F. K., Bechtel, P. J., Novakovski, J., Shanks, R. D. and Carr, T. R. (1988). "Variation in composition and palatability traits and relationships between muscle characteristics and palatability in a random sample of pork carcases". J. Anim. Sci. 66: 385-395. De Vol et al found that using a number of physical parameters of pork including colour, marbling score and intramuscular fat measured chemically, only a small proportion of the variation in tenderness and juiciness could be explained, 21% and 26% respectively. These values correspond to multiple correlations of approximately r=0.46 and r=0.51 respectively.
Other work has confirmed the difficulties which have been found until now. Wood, J. D. and Warris, P. D. (1992). "The influence of manipulation of carcase composition on meat quality", in "The control of fat and lean deposition", edited by Boorman, K. N., Buttery, P. J. and Lindsay, D. B. Published by Butterworth Heinmann, Oxford. This states that low correlations between marbling fat and tenderness (typically around 0.2) suggest the involvement of other factors. Some of these have been identified for example the tendency of muscles in lean carcases to cold shorten if chilling rates are rapid. Even so, significant variation in tenderness still remains after the effect of all known factors are removed and a search for the cause of this is becoming more important.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, a method of obtaining information relating to the eating quality of a body comprising a hot or cold meat carcass, raw or cooked meat or live animal comprise
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Miles Christopher A.
Warkup Christopher C.
Finley Rose M.
Meat and Livestock Commission
Raevis Robert
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