ON LINE DETERMINATION OF WATER RETAINING ABILITY IN PORK MUSCLE

Studies performed Do different freezing methods/processes affect the quality of thawed meat? (Smartfrys project, September 2015-Augus 2016, Animalia, UiO and Nofima) NMR is employed as a tool for WHC prediction and will be tested if T2 and I2 values are different between fresh and thawed samples after freezing using different methods. Conference MR2016 (June 2016, University of Bergen) Poster: Continuous- and Discrete Spin-Spin Relaxation Rate Representations of Water in Meat ? A Comparative Investigation. Publications: 1. Title: Discrete and continuous spin-spin relaxation rate distributions derived from CPMG NMR response curves ? a comparative analysis exemplified by water in meat. Acceptance after minor revision by Applied Magnetic Resonance. 2. Title: The potential for predicting purge in packaged meat using low field NMR. Submitted to Journal of Food Engineering. 3. Thesis Title: Evaluating nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) as a robust absolute reference method for water holding capacity (WHC) of pork meat. Submitted 30.June, 2016

This industrial Ph D project focuses on increasing the production efficiency in the meat industry. Modern pig breeding and production methods have called for a better understanding regarding how we measure and predict water holding capacity of pork meat post mortem. The project aims at developing an improved Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) reference method for quantification of the different states of water in pork meat. NMR is an absolute method in the sense that it ?sees? all protons in sample. Howe ver, the challenge is how to discriminate between non-mobile (or poorly exchangeable) water protons and the more rigid non-water protons, and this challenge will be the main research topic addressed in this project. Quantitative determination compartment alization of water is not established and it will be the cutting edge challenge of this project to have it established. Recent theories within relaxation curve fitting will be explored. The NMR technique is, however, too slow to be used as an in line or o n-line method in the meat industry. Provided the project establish validated calibration models for quantitative aspects of water compartmentalization, the project will explore the ability to transfer the information content from the NMR method to both Ne ar Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Scattering (EDXRS). These latter methods are presently better suited as in-line or on-line methods in the meat industry. The student will receive supervision in the company regarding industrial m easuring needs, industrial meat processes plus NMR knowledge (Dr. Magnus Wahlgren). However, a supervision team has been established, this is lead by UMB (Prof. Bjørg Egelandsdal). University of Oslo (Prof. Eddy W. Hansen) will provide NMR equipment plus extended knowledge of chemical and physical aspects of NMR as a technique. SINTEF ICT, Oslo, will provide in- house pilot instrumentation (NIRS) and EDXRS) with adaptation potential to industrial measurement.