Determination of Fat Content in Meats by Near-infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy

Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was used to measure the amount of fat in meats. In the NIR spectra of ground pork, beef, and chicken, five major absorption peaks due to fat were observed as common to all samples at 1208, 1726, 2306, and 2346 nm with the addition of two strong peaks due to water at 1460 and 1934 nm. A linear regression analysis was performed to correlate fat content with absorbance defined as log (1/reflectance). The most satisfactory results between the two parameters were obtained in the regression with combinations of absorbances at 1208 and 1230 nm, and 1726 and 1738 nm. These results indicate that the NIR method has high potential for determining the fat content of meat samples.