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Title: Microwave dielectric properties of ground and whole-muscle chicken meat and correlations with quality attributes

Author
item Trabelsi, Samir
item Samuel, Dora

Submitted to: Microwave Power Symposium Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/7/2010
Publication Date: 7/15/2010
Citation: Trabelsi, S., Samuel, D.D. 2010. Microwave dielectric properties of ground and whole-muscle chicken meat and correlations with quality attributes. 44th Annual Microwave Power Symposium Proceedings; Denver, Colorado; July 14-16, 2010, pp. 136-141.

Interpretive Summary: Quality, including taste, freshness and tenderness, has been the major aspect of consumer satisfaction with chicken meat. However, so far, little attempt has been made to assess and monitor chicken meat quality, including juiciness and tenderness by using rapid and nondestructive methods in the poultry industry Quality attributes of chicken meat, which are of interest to both producers and consumers, are often assessed through measurement of physical properties including color, pH, water holding capacity, drip loss, and texture. Procedures used for these assessments are lengthy and tedious and involve various types of instrumentation. Because water constitutes the major component in chicken meat, dielectric spectroscopy could be useful for rapid assessment of chicken meat quality. In this paper, results of dielectric properties measurements on ground and whole-muscle chicken meat are presented, and their correlations with quality attributes are discussed. Dielectric properties of whole-muscle and ground chicken breast meat were measured with an open-ended coaxial-line probe between 0.5 GHz and 50 GHz at 23 oC. For both whole-muscle and ground meat, the trends observed in the dielectric spectra are characteristic of biological substances with high water content. Ionic conduction was clearly dominant in the lower frequency region of the dielectric spectra and dipolar polarization was obvious at higher frequencies. In general, differences between the dielectric spectra of whole-muscle and ground chicken meat samples were more obvious for samples with high pH. Although no useful correlations were observed between the dielectric properties of whole-muscle and ground chicken breast meat and their quality attributes in this study, the data collected will be useful in further research on rapid sensing of chicken meat quality for the benefit of processors and consumers.

Technical Abstract: Dielectric spectra of whole-muscle and ground chicken meat samples were obtained with an open-ended coaxial-line probe between 0.5 GHz and 50 GHz at 23 oC. The spectra show a dielectric behavior consistent with that expected for materials with high water content with differences between the whole-muscle and ground samples more pronounced for samples with higher pH.