Relationship Between Electrical Impedance Characteristics and Physical Property of Cooked Meats

Abstract

This study aims to show the relationship between the electrical impedance characteristics of meats and the physical properties in order to establish a evaluating method of heating process of meats. The pork tenderloin with 10 mm thickness was heated at a constant temperature, then the Impedance characteristics and cooking loss of the heated samples were measured. However, no correlative relationship was found between the two values. The impedance (100 kHz - 1 MHz) of the sample heated and immediately cooled down showed good correlation between cooking loss and fracture characteristics. The impedance values at 250 kHz was found to be correlated with the cooking loss (R = 0.913), the shear force with deformation of 50% (R = 0.860), the fracture position (R = −0.790). Impedance Z_CL calculated from three factors: the impedance of the heated sample, the temperature of the sample in impedance measurement and the raw impedance, were highly correlated with cooking loss (R = 0.851). The present study showed that the cooking loss and the fracture characteristics of meat can be estimated from the impedance values during heating process.