Quick, easy test helps ensure safe meat

Scientist have reported a new simple and quick test that food manufacturers can use to determine if their meat is safe or not. Although a regular sniff test may be an effective means to test if meat within our homes is safe to consume, larger manufacturers require an effective test that can be done on large quantities of meat to ensure quality.

Transporting meat and seafood while it is still fresh is a large priority for distributors. Current strategies to determine meat freshness require slow, bulky equipment that can affect real-time analysis. Yanke Che and colleagues wanted to create a quick and easy test that could provide fast and time-sensitive results.

The research team developed highly fluorescent, hollow nanotubes that grow dim when they react with compounds given off by meat as it decomposes. For testing, the team sealed commercial samples of a variety of meat in containers for four days. The portable system was then exposed to vapor emitted from the samples and reaction was seen within an hour’s time. This is fast enough to measure real-time freshness. Lastly, if the tubes glowed dim by more than 10 percent, it indicated the meat was spoiled.

The findings were published in ACS Sensors.

Read more about how meat affects your health:

Meat consumption and high cooking temperatures increase kidney cancer risk
The truth about bacon and cancer

Source:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/acs