Consumers have undoubtedly become more health conscious. This has posed a challenge to the meat processing industry, which has had to work hard to convince an often sceptical public that meat can be healthy.
As a result, instruments to measure the lean-to-fat ratio in meat have appeared on the market, and the latest development in this field involves the use of dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).
According to the ARS, DXA images can accurately show the composition of pork carcasses. The procedure is non-invasive, quick and requires little user input. "The technology is based on using x-rays of differing energy levels to scan for soft tissue of differing densities," scientist Alva Mitchell told Agricultural Research magazine.
The latest DXA instruments which are now being tested, use a wide-angle or fan-beam technology that will scan even wider sections, increasing scanning speed. The ARS used the technology to measure pork carcass composition by performing a total scan of pork carcass halves. Information from selected cross-sections of the image was found to be highly predictive of the composition of the entire carcass.
The implications for the pork processing and export industries are immense.
"Dual x-ray absorptiometry would allow packers to know just what they are paying for: the true value of the meat and not a large amount of fat that gets cut off before shipping," said Mitchell. The ARS says that the next step for the DXA instrument is to find a commercial packing plant to test the technology at commercial speeds.
The ARS says that previous instrumentation has allowed the fat-to-lean ratio to be determined with an acceptable degree of accuracy. But following the latest test on dual x-ray absorptiometry, more rapid and accurate methods to test the fat content of meat could soon be on the market.