If superior beef tenderness isn’t enough to whet your appetite, a system that predicts both beef and pork tenderness as well as color stability in both meats may be something you can sink your teeth into.
In 2001, scientists at the Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC) in Clay Center, Nebraska, developed a noninvasive tenderness-prediction system to identify U.S. Select beef carcasses with exceptional tenderness in the ribeye/strip loin muscle. The process, which doesn’t require cooking or tasting, is based on visible and near-infrared reflectance (Vis/NIR) spectroscopy.
Though the system is commonly referred to as the “USMARC Noninvasive Beef Tenderness Prediction System,” the name no longer describes its many applications. Food technologists Tommy Wheeler, Steven Shackelford, and Andy King in the USMARC Meat Safety and Quality Research Unit have shown that it is equally effective at predicting more than just tenderness—and in pork as well as beef.
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