Abstract

Hayam M. Ibrahim

Food quality is directly related to people’s health and social progress. Consumers are looking for quality seals and trust marks on food products, and expect manufacturers and retailers to provide products of high quality. In practice, it is more necessary to develop fast and efficient spectroscopic tools as useful technology to accomplish meat and meat products quality detection. Irradiation, results in physicochemical changes in food products. Ionizing radiation includes gamma rays, electron beams, and X-rays. Ionizing radiation is effective at eliminating food pathogens in poultry and other foods. Some physico-chemical, microbiological and sensory properties of fermented sausages have been realized by E-beam radiation. Gamma irradiation in combination with antioxidant addition (tea poly-phenol) was used in the pork industry to assure quality product with prolonged shelf-life. X-ray irradiations e.g. computed and micro-computed tomography was used successfully for prediction assessment and estimation of salt and water content in dry-cured ham, sodium chloride diffusivity of fresh and frozen/thawed ham muscles during salting and intramuscular fat level and distribution in beef muscles. This review article presents the most recent trends, during the last four years, concerning the ability of Gamma Rays, Electron beams and Xray radiations for quality predictions of meat and meat products.