FAT ESTIMATION OF RIPENED LOIN AND SHOULDER OF PORK USING DIGITAL IMAGE ANALYSIS

In this study it was treated the applicability of a rapid analy tical method, the Video Image Analysis, to determine the fat percentage of smoked dry - cured meat products. Two different pig carcass primal cuts, loin n= 125 and shoulder n=88, ripened according to the same manufacture method were tested. The end product, cut into slices, was submitted to digital image collection then to analytical procedure for the determination of proximate composition. The image analysis allowed to perform linear measurements on lean and fat fractions and to calculate their respective ar eas. The data acquired with image analysis were significantly related to the data of chemical composition, both for loin and shoulder. In particular, the ratio fat area/total area % for loin showed a correlation coefficient equal to 0.80*** versus the fat percentage. It was derived an equation able to predict the fat percentage just knowing the ratio fat area/total area % detected with the image analysis