Dielectric Technique for Quality Control of Beef Meat in the Range 10 kHz - 1 MHz

Abstract: To estimate the freshness of beef meat the dielectric measurements were carried out on the twenty five samples. Capacitance (C) and conductance (G) were measured using LCZ meter over a frequency range from 10 kHz to 1 MHz. The measured values were used to calculate permittivity and conductivity of beef at various time intervals (2, 4, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 days) during storage. The effects of storage time on the dielectric constant were investigated. The values of permittivity and conductivity (real and imaginary) decreased with increasing of the storage time for all samples. The ratio between the relative conductivity of stored sample to the fresh sample “Q value” was used as an indicator of the meat freshness. The results indicated that the Q value is a fairly good indicator of the loss of freshness. The dielectric method for freshness assessment of meat has several advantages: it is non-destructive, easy, rapid, effective, reliable and practical.