Beef Grade Evaluation by Fractal Analysis of Beef Marbling

Abstract

Currently, the beef-grade-evaluation is determined by visual inspection, that has three issues. Its criterion varies from person to person;it can be influenced by the inspector's standard, and mood and fatigue. Therefore, this study aimed to quantify the complexity of beef marbling and quantitatively evaluate beef grading by performing fractal analysis on beef marbling with fractal characteristic. The grade evaluation for beef marbling is based on BMS (beef marbling standard) No., a beef marbling index set by the Japan Meat Grading Association (JMGA). In the experiment, a cross-section of the area used to visually determine BMS No. was considered, and fractal analysis was performed on the image. As a result, the existence of a correlation between BMS No. and fractal dimension was confirmed, indicating the effectiveness of the proposed method.