Connective and adipose tissue detection by simultaneous fluorescence and reflectance measurements with an on-line meat probe

Abstract

An on-line multichannel fiber-optic meat probe was developed to measure both tissue reflectance and fluorescence. At four sites on 22 beef carcasses, reflectance peaks (originating from both adipose and connective tissue) were more numerous and intense than fluorescence peaks (mainly connective tissue), but fluorescence peaks were wider than reflectance peaks. Laboratory measurements using double monochromators to exclude pseudoreflectance (trace reflectance of UV excitation) showed that both adipose and collagenous connective tissue had high UV reflectance (peaking at 360 and 380 nm, respectively), although this was absent in elastic connective tissue and muscle. Improvement of connective tissue detection may be possible by separately detecting and correcting for differences in adiposity between samples. At present, elastic deformation of tissues and pseudofluorescence are the major technical problems to be overcome.