Quantifying Fiber Formation in Meat Analogs under High Moisture Extrusion using Image Processing

摘要

High moisture extrusion using twin-screw extruders shows great promise of producing meat analog products with vegetable proteins. The resulting products have well defined fiber formations; resemble real meat in both visual appearance and taste sensation. Developing reliable non-destructive techniques to quantify the textural properties of extrudates is important for quality control in the manufacturing process. In this study, we developed an image processing technique to automatically characterize sample fiber formation using digital imaging. The algorithm is based on statistical analysis of Hough transform. This objective method can be used as a standard method for evaluating other non-invasive methods. We have compared the fiber formation indices measured using this technique and a non-invasive fluorescence polarization method and obtained a high correlation.