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Moisture, Fat, and Protein Analysis for Processed Meat Producers
Introduction
Processed meat products such as sausage, salami, and jerky are often difficult to analyze due to the non-homogeneous nature of the product, often containing herbs, spices, preservatives, and other non-meat ingredients. Traditional wet chemistry analysis such as chemical fat extraction or Kjeldahl digestion for protein analysis are expensive, time consuming and require the use of hazardous chemicals. Wet chemistry methods are often skewed by non-meat additives, resulting in inaccurate results and subsequent errors in formulation. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) is a rapid alternative to wet chemistry methods, providing results in less than a minute with no hazardous chemicals. However, optical methods such as NIR and FT-IR require very high levels of sample homogeneity, and must be calibrated according to the amounts of additives used in formulation. Changes in color, consistency, or formulation can negatively impact results, making it difficult to obtain accurate results.
The combination of the SMART 6TM and ORACLETM systems provide a rapid moisture and fat determination, with results in less than 5 minutes. The SMART 6 moisture and solids analyzer utilizes dual-frequency energy to rapidly analyze any product, wet or dry, in 3 minutes or less. ORACLE eliminates the need for method development by completely isolating the signal from fat molecules, even in complex sample matrices. Sprint® is a direct protein measurement system, which utilizes dye-binding technology to ensure only true protein is detected, not total nitrogen, which can result in erroneous measurements when non-protein nitrogen is present. Sprint does not require regular calibrations, and methods are easy for any lab user to create. Competitive rapid technologies (NIR, FT-IR, TDNMR) require ongoing, expensive calibrations and method development for each unique sample due to variations in color, texture, and consistency.
This study demonstrates that CEM’s innovative technology can rapidly analyze a wide range of processed meats for moisture, fat, and protein with accuracy and precision that matches reference methods.