Development of a predictive water-holding capacity method in postmortem longissimus dorsi muscle

To accelerate measurement of the water-holding capacity (WHC) of meat, a predictive method based on the use of electromagnetic microwave spectroscopy is investigated. A system is developed to estimate WHC from postmortem muscle. The proposed method is compared with the widely used EZ-Driploss method. WHC is normally estimated by measuring drip loss of the early postmortem muscle over a long period of time. Unlike current methods which are time-consuming, this method estimates the drip loss within 30 minutes. Drip loss of longissumus dorsi muscle is measured using the developed method and the EZ-Driploss method. Results indicate that there is a strong correlation between reflection and transmission signatures of the meat samples and their corresponding drip loss measured using the EZ-Driploss method.