VIS/NIR hyper-spectroscopy technique for the measurement of moisture and fat contents of breaded-fried chicken nuggets

Moisture and fat contents are two important parameters in quality evaluation of fried chicken nuggets. This study was undertaken to evaluate moisture and fat contents of fried breaded chicken nuggets using VIS/NIR hyper-spectroscopic technique. Breaded nugget samples were fried for different times in hydrogenated soybean oil in order to obtain various levels of moisture and fat contents. Reflectance spectra of samples were collected within the range of 400-1750nm using a spectro-radiometer. Partial least squares (PLS) calibration models were developed for quantitative evaluation of the two parameters. The R ² and root mean square error (RMSE) for each prediction were calculated to assess the prediction capability of the model. R ² values of 0.92 were obtained from cross validation of calibration for total moisture and fat contents. Validation of the calibration resulted in RMSE of 0.105 for moisture content and 0.017 for fat content predictions. VIS/NIR spectral analysis was proved to be a straightforward and fast method for prediction of the two important parameters of fried breaded chicken nuggets (moisture and fat) and once the calibration model was developed, the VIS/NIR instrument was capable of doing the analysis in few min.