Electrical Impedance to Easily Discover Undeclared Freeze-thaw Cycles in Slaughtered Bovine Meat

A H Dell'Osa; G Battacone; G Pulina; A Fois; F Tocco; A Loviselli; A Concu; F Velluzzi

doi:10.2478/joeb-2021-0002

Electrical Impedance to Easily Discover Undeclared Freeze-thaw Cycles in Slaughtered Bovine Meat

J Electr Bioimpedance. 2021 Mar 30;12(1):3-10. doi: 10.2478/joeb-2021-0002. eCollection 2021 Jan.

Authors

A H Dell'Osa¹, G Battacone², G Pulina², A Fois³, F Tocco⁴, A Loviselli⁴, A Concu⁵, F Velluzzi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Instituto de Desarrollo Económico e Innovación, Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia, Argentina.
² Department of Agricultural Science, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
³ Nomadyca Ltd, Kampala, Uganda.
⁴ Department of Medical Sciences and Public Health, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.
⁵ 2C Technologies Ltd, Academic Spin-Off, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.

Abstract

A portable electrical impedance spectroscopy device was developed to monitor the bioimpedance resistive component of bovine meat by injecting a sinusoidal current of 1 mA at 65 kHz. Both right and left longissimus dorsi muscles were trimmed from 4 slaughtered cows. The left muscle portions were frozen to -18 °C for 7 days while the right ones were meantime maintained at 5 °C. Mean value of impedance per length (Ω/cm) of frozen and thawed left samples was 31% lower than that of right non-frozen one (P = 0.0001). It was concluded that the device is reliable for monitoring the maturation of beef meat in situ with the possibility of revealing undeclared freeze-thaw cycles.

Keywords: Meat anisotropy; freeze-thaw cycles; meat electrical bioimpedance; meat maturation process; slaughtered bovine meat.