Feasibility of Using Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy for Assessing Biological Cell Damage during Freezing and Thawing.

Sisay Mebre Abie,Frøydis Bjerke,Ørjan Grøttem Martinsen,Jie Hou,Daniel Münch,Bjørg Egelandsdal,Alex Mason

doi:10.3390/s21124129

Abstract

This study was performed to test bioimpedance as a tool to detect the effect of different thawing methods on meat quality to aid in the eventual creation of an electric impedance-based food quality monitoring system. The electric impedance was measured for fresh pork, thawed pork, and during quick and slow thawing. A clear difference was observed between fresh and thawed samples for both impedance parameters. Impedance was different between the fresh and the frozen-thawed samples, but there were no impedance differences between frozen-thawed samples and the ones that were frozen-thawed and then stored at +3 °C for an additional 16 h after thawing. The phase angle was also different between fresh and the frozen-thawed samples. At high frequency, there were small, but clear phase angle differences between frozen-thawed samples and the samples that were frozen-thawed and subsequently stored for more than 16 h at +3 °C. Furthermore, the deep learning model LSTM-RNN (long short-term memory recurrent neural network) was found to be a promising way to classify the different methods of thawing.

Highlights

Freezing is one of the most widely used methods of meat preservation [1,2]
The electrical impedance of the meat was measured to examine the feasibility of using electrical impedance spectroscopy to monitor the thawing processes and to assess the potential of electrical impedance to differentiate the thawing methods
Not much is known about the bioelectrical properties of meat in the frozen state and how they depend on temperature and how they change during phase transition from frozen to defrosted

Summary

Introduction

50–75 percent of the weight of meat is water. When water freezes, it expands, and ice crystals can cause extensive damage to cell membranes and other structures. It expands, and ice crystals can cause extensive damage to cell membranes and other structures This means that besides its obvious advantages, freezing can cause cell and tissue damage, often resulting in poorer meat quality. Frozen meat must be thawed, with additional effects on meat quality, e.g., by recrystallization during phase transition. Typical detrimental effects of freezing and thawing on meat quality are thaw loss (TL), and changes to meat color and tenderness [3,4,5,6,7]. Identifying optimum thawing procedures can reduce quality and result in economic loss

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Conclusion