AUTHENTICATION OF FRESH VS. FROZEN-THEN-THAWED BEEF BY NEAR-INFRARED REFLECTANCE SPECTROSCOPY OF DRIED DRIP JUICE

The substitution of frozen-then-thawed for fresh meat is a significant authenticity issue. This paper focuses on the use of near infrared sp ectroscopy and selected chemometric techniques (PLS, factorial discrim inant analysis SIMCA) to detect whether meat has been frozen. Samples of meat drip juice were collected from longissimus dorsi slices (femal e Hereford cross) obtained from a commercial abbattoir. Using spectral data from 1100-2498 nm and a standard freeze-thaw regimen, the best s eparation was obtained using factorial discriminant analysis. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.