ElsevierPrados Pedraza, MD.; Fulladosa, E.; Gou, P.; Muñoz, I.; García Pérez, JV.; Benedito Fort, JJ. (2015). Non-destructive determination of fat content in green hams using ultrasound and X-rays. Meat Science. 104:37-43. doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2015.01.015 0309-1740/.1 Non-destructive determination of fat content in green hams using ultrasound and 1 X-Rays ABSTRACT 14This work addresses the use of ultrasound (US) and medical dual energy X-ray 15 absorptiometry methods to predict the fat content in green pork hams. Ultrasonic 16 velocity () and X-Ray absorption were measured in 78 green hams. An increase in the 17 fat content involved an increase in  and a decrease in the X-Ray attenuation 18 measured at 2 ºC. Models developed to predict the fat content from the ultrasonic 19 velocity or X-Ray parameters provided errors of 2.97% and 4.65%, respectively. The 20 combination of both US and X-Ray technologies did not improve prediction accuracy. 21These models allowed green hams to be classification into three levels of fatness, with 22 88.5% and 65.4% of the hams correctly classified when using models based on 23 ultrasonic and X-Ray parameters, respectively. Therefore, US and X-Rays emerge as 24 useful quality control technologies with which to estimate the fat content in green pork 25 hams. 26 27

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Bearing in mind the highly variable salt content in dry-cured meat products with anatomical integrity, such as pork loin or ham, non-destructive salt content characterization and the online monitoring of dry salting are highly relevant for industrial purposes. This study explores the ability of low-intensity ultrasound to monitor the dry salting of pork Biceps femoris (BF) and Longissimus dorsi (LD) online, as well as to estimate the salt content, both in these muscles and in hams. For this purpose, meat samples were dry salted for up to 16 d at 2ºC. During the salting of the muscles, the ultrasonic velocity was continuously measured at time intervals of 5min, while in the hams it was measured before and after salting. The ultrasonic velocity increased progressively during the salting due to salt gain and water loss, reaching a velocity variation (∆V) of 46.8m/s after 16 d of dry salting for hams and 59.5 and 30.6m/s after 48h of dry salting for LD and BF, respectively. Accurate correlations between salt gain and ∆V were obtained (R 2 = 0.903 in LD-BF muscles and R 2 = 0.758 in hams), which allowed the assessment of the salt content with an average estimation error of 0.4% w.b. for both muscles and hams. Further research should investigate the use of the time of flight obtained through the pulse-echo mode, instead of the ultrasonic velocity, in order to improve the industrial applicability.

Online ultrasound measurements were taken using pulse-echo mode in loins (Longissimus dorsi) and hams at different salting times (up to 30days). From the time-domain ultrasonic wave, the time of flight (TOF) was computed as well as its variation between two signals (ΔTOF). A progressive decrease in TOF during dry salting was found, which was linked to the salt gain, water loss and the reduction in sample thickness. Predictive models based on the ultrasonic parameters (ΔTOF and initial time of flight, TOF) correctly classified 85% of the loins and 90% of the hams into 3 groups of salt content (low/medium/high). The results obtained confirm that the use of the ultrasonic pulse-echo technique is of great potential in the non-destructive monitoring of dry salting in pork loins and hams, as well as in the prediction of the salt gain for classification purposes.

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