Use of near infrared technology to predict fatty acid groups in commercial ground meat products

Near infrared transmittance (NIT, 850 to 1048 nm) spectroscopy was used to predict groups of fatty acids (FA), namely saturated FA (SFA), monounsaturated FA (MUFA) and polyunsaturated FA (PUFA), in commercial ground meat samples aiming to develope a fast and reliable method for their determination in support of label declaration by the new EC Regulation 1169/2011. Dataset was built using 81 samples of commercial ground meat from different species: beef, pork, chicken and turkey. In some samples, meat was mixtured with different ingredients such as bread, cheese, spices and additives. Samples were first analysed by NIT instrument for spectral information and reference FA values were obtained by gas chromatographic analysis. Prediction models for SFA, MUFA and PUFA expressed on total FA exhibited coefficients of determination of calibration of 0.822, 0.367 and 0.780 on intact samples, and 0.879, 0.726 and 0.908 on minced samples, respectively. Good results were also obtained when FA groups were expressed as g/100g of fresh meat: the coefficient of determination of calibration increased to values larger than 0.915. Moreover, comparing the slightly lower coefficient of determination in crossvalidation of intact compared with minced meat suggested that equations developed for minced samples were more accurate than those built for intact products. Results highlighted the effectiveness of NIT spectroscopy to predict the major FA groups in commercial meat products.