Technology Enhanced to Evaluate Meat Quality10 August 2012 US -
A system designed by US Department of Agriculture (USDA)
scientists to predict superior beef tenderness is just as
effective at predicting tenderness in pork and colour stability
in meat. The noninvasive tenderness prediction system was
developed in the 1990s by scientists at the Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) Roman L. Hruska US Meat Animal Research
Center (USMARC) in Clay Center, Nebraska, to identify US Select
beef carcases with outstanding tenderness in the ribeye/strip
loin muscle. The technology is based on visible and near-
infrared reflectance spectroscopy, and can be used without
destroying any product from the carcase. ARS is USDA's chief
intramural scientific research agency, and this research
supports the USDA priority of promoting international food
security. Food technologists Steven Shackelford, Andy King and
Tommy Wheeler, who work in the USMARC Meat Safety and Quality
Research Unit, invented the system and have tested it on mo