For the period of 31 December 1954 - 15 January 1956. It is the overall objective of this study to learn in quantitative chemical, physical and organoleptic terms the relationship between radiation induced unsaturated fat oxidation and flavor, color and vitamin changes in meats.
Fat oxidation is measured chemically in terms of peroxide concentration and carbonyl compounds.
Flavor is evaluated organoleptically during taste panels. The organoleptic evaluation of flavor of irradiated meats is not developed extensively in this research. The main objective of organoleptic flavor evaluation is to gain more perspective of how radiation affects flavor and to determine if correlations exist between the chemical quantitative measures and the organoleptic evaluation of flavor. The effect of radiation on the hematin compounds which are responsible for the red color of the meat is determined by chemical and spectrophometric techniques. In certain meats carotenoids are important pigments.