Tenderization of Beef with Pineapple Juice Monitored by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometric Analysis

For nondestructive monitoring of meat tenderizing processes, factor analysis, and evolving factor analysis (EFA) were applied to successively collected attenuated total reflectance-Infrared spectra of beef after treatment with pineapple juice. Absorption around 1600 to 1500 cm -1 and 1400 cm -1 regions increased with time. After subtracting the starting spectrum from each of the succeeding spectra, factor analysis and EFA were applied to the resulting data matrix. Factor scores showed a time dependent change, but a clear difference between treated and reference beef was observed in factor 1. Eigenvalues calculated from EFA showed the existence of two vigorous digestion periods during tenderization, which supported the results from biochemical analysis.