VEAL COLOR ASSESSMENT WITH 3 WAVELENGTHS

A method to derive reflectance spectra and colour coordinates of meat by measurement of reflectance at only three wavelengths, 480, 570 and 620 nm has been developed by treating the spectra of a meat sample as a linear combination of the spectra of the three major myoglobin deriv atives (reduced myoglobin, oxymyoglobin and metmyoglobin). Applied to 300 samples of Semitendinosus and Longissimus dorsi veal muscles at di fferent times post mortem (24 h to 9 d), colour differences Delta E b etween the derived spectra and the real ones were about 1.5 units. The total pigment content, with high correlation with the extraction meth od (P <0.02), and the relative proportions of the derivatives can also be estimated. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.