High Throughput Determination of Intramuscular Fat Content By Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Poster. In all animal species, the amount of fat and its distribution within body compartments determine both the productive efficiency and quality of meat, including sensory acceptability and potential benefits for human nutrition. Among the characteristics of the pig muscle that predict these qualities, the level of intramuscular fat (IMF) is the most commonly used because of its high heritability and its strong genetic correlation with overall acceptability of the meat, in particular for pork. Thus, flavour and juiciness would be significantly enhanced when IMF levels increased above approximately 2.5%. The determination of intramuscular fat is based on meticulous and time‐consuming standard chemical extraction methods. In this work, we validated a reliable and accurate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method to determine IMF content and distribution in intact pig muscle samples using very limited sample preparation and image analysis by comparison with a standard chemical extraction method and two physical methods, the near infrared transmittance and a self‐calibrated nuclear magnetic resonance NMR relaxometry. IMF values obtained through MRI matched well with those obtained by the NMR technique with a standard error of calibration of 0.18% and by the Soxhlet extraction technique and the near infrared technique, with an identical standard error of calibration of 0.25%. This high throughput MRI method is able to scan 24 samples simultaneously and determine the IMF content of more than 500 samples per day.