Electronic Tongue as a Correlative Technique for Modeling Cattle Meat Quality and Classification of Breeds

Abstract

Discrimination and species identification of meat has always been of paramount importance in the European meat market. This is often achieved using different conventional analytical methods but advanced sensor-based methods, such as the electronic tongue (e-tongue), are also gaining attention for rapid and reliable analysis. The aim of this study was to discriminate Angus, domestic buffalo, Hungarian Grey, Hungarian Spotted cattle, and Holstein beef meat samples from the chuck steak part of the animals, which mostly contained longissimus dorsi muscles, using e-tongue as a correlative technique with conventional methods for analysis of pH, color, texture, water activity, water-holding capacity, cooking yield, water binding activity, and descriptive sensory analysis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine significant differences between the measured quality traits of the five-meat species after analysis with conventional analytical methods. E-tongue data were visualized with principal component analysis (PCA) before classifying the five-meat species with linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Significant differences were observed among some of the investigated quality parameter. In most cases, Hungarian Grey was most different from the other species. Using e-tongue, separation patterns could be observed in the PCA that were confirmed with 100% recognition and 97.5% prediction of all the different meat species in LDA.

Applications of Electronic Nose, Electronic Eye and Electronic Tongue in Quality, Safety and Shelf Life of Meat and Meat Products: A Review

“…Taste is the perception associated with the presence of substances that stimulates taste buds located on the tongue [ 6 ]. The E-tongue, unlike the human tongue, has improvements in sensitivity, selectivity and multiplexing capacity of modern biosensors that are able to reliably predict the quality of samples quickly and accurately, earning space in the pharmaceutical, environmental, cosmetics and food industries [ 44 ].…”

“…The E-tongue has also been studied to determine several aspects related to quality and shelf life of fresh meat. One example is the identification of cattle and buffalo meat according to animal breed [ 44 ]. In this case, samples from Angus and Hungarian grey breed were clearly separated from the other breeds (domestic buffalo, Hungarian Spotted cattle, and Holstein), indicating a potential application to ensure the traceability for these two breeds.…”

The Impact of Rearing Salinity on Flesh Texture, Taste, and Fatty Acid Composition in Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides

“…Texture profile analysis (TPA) and electronic-tongue (E-tongue) are effective methods assessing meat texture and taste substances, respectively, and have been widely used in livestock and poultry products analysis [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Recently, TPA and E-tongue have come into use for texture and taste analysis in aquatic animals [ 16 , 17 ].…”

Metabolomics-Based Analysis of the Major Taste Contributors of Meat by Comparing Differences in Muscle Tissue between Chickens and Common Livestock Species

“…In addition, the metabolomics data suggested that IMP was a metabolic signature and biomarker among frozen meats during refrigeration [ 18 ]. In addition, the electronic tongue (e-tongue) can evaluate the taste of food objectively, quickly, and simply, and it has been widely used in food, medicine, tea, and wine industries [ 19 ]. However, the combined use of metabolomics and e-tongue to identify the major taste contributors has not been reported.…”