Investigating the influence of marination and storage on microwave dielectric properties of chicken breast meat

Authors: Trabelsi, Samir

Submitted to: Journal of Microwave Power and Electromagnetic Energy
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/23/2023
Publication Date: 5/7/2023
Citation: Trabelsi, S. 2023. Investigating the influence of marination and storage on microwave dielectric properties of chicken breast meat. Journal of Microwave Power and Electromagnetic Energy. https://doi.org/10.1080/08327823.2023.2207604.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08327823.2023.2207604

Interpretive Summary: Simultaneous influence of marination and storage on dielectric properties of chicken meat was investigated through dielectric measurements at microwave frequencies. For this purpose, an open-ended coaxial probe and a vector network analyser were used for measurement of the dielectric properties between 200 MHz and 20 GHz and at a room temperature of 23 oC. For all chicken samples, the same general trend was observed for the variations of dielectric properties with frequency. The dielectric constant decreased with frequency with significant slope change at about 5 GHz. The dielectric loss factor decreased sharply up to 2 GHz and then increased with frequency showing a broad relaxation above 8 GHz. Values of the dielectric constant and dielectric loss factor measured for marinated chicken meat samples were greater than those of non-marinated samples and this was more significant for the dielectric loss factor at lower frequencies. In addition, each level of marination was distinctly observed over the same frequency range. Investigation of the influence of storage revealed that the dielectric loss factor of marinated samples decreased over the storage period while those of non-marinated sample slightly increased with storage time. For both marinated and non-marinated samples, water loss increased with storage time.

Technical Abstract: Chicken meat constitutes one of the main inexpensive sources of proteins. There has been a steady increase in both demand and consumption of chicken meat. Therefore, there is a growing need for developing of new tools for rapid assessment of the quality attributes of chicken meat at the processing plant and selling outlets . Because chicken meat is more than 70% water by composition, microwave dielectric-based methods and sensors are suitable for developing such tools. The first step is to form a database by measuring the dielectric properties at microwave frequencies under varying physical conditions. Next, models are established to correlate the dielectric properties with the quality attributes of interest including water holding capacity, freshness, and texture. In the United States, half of the raw poultry meat is marinated to increase water holding capacity and cook yield. Therefore, in this study , dielectric properties of non-marinated and marinated chicken breast meat were measured with a coaxial line probe at microwave frequencies between 0.2 GHz and 20 GHz at a room temperature of 22 oC. Also, the influence of storage on dielectric properties was investigated. Results show that the dielectric properties track the marination pickup level and the changes related to water loss during storage.