Lipid oxidation degree of pork meat during frozen storage investigated by near-infrared hyperspectral imaging: Effect of ice crystal growth and distribution

The present work describes a measurement method using the combination of near-infrared hyperspectral imaging (NIR-HSI) and chemometrics for rapid and non-destructive detection of lipid oxidation degree of pork meat during frozen storage based on thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) value measurement. The HSI images were acquired at frozen state without thawing. An interesting phenomenon was discovered that the TBARS value was highly correlated with the scattering characteristics of frozen pork meat, which was mainly influenced by the ice crystals growth and distribution. The partial least square (PLS) regression model established using only the two correction factors obtained from multiplicative scattering correction (MSC) yielded an almost identical performance with that based on the full NIR spectral region with determination coefficient in prediction (R2P) of 0.926 and root mean square error in prediction (RMSEP) of 0.036. This finding was helpful for better interpretation of the NIR spectra of frozen meat.