Patent ID: 8249307

Claim:
A method for assessing a tenderness of meat comprising the steps of: scanning a sample of meat through an x-ray beam; detecting or measuring a transmitted x-ray radiation through the meat sample; relating the transmitted x-ray radiation to a characteristic of a shear force of the meat sample; assessing the tenderness of the meat sample from the characteristic of the shear force, and wherein the meat is scanned using a dual energy x-ray absorption scanner to produce two images or arrays of values representative of intensities of the x-rays at two energy levels, the two images or arrays of values comprise a high energy image or array and a low energy image or array, and the high and low energy images or arrays are applied via a regression equation of a general form: PF=A·f n ( I L ,I H )+ B·f m (stdev( r ( I L ,I H )))+ C·f l ( I L )+ D·f p ( I H )+ E (1) where: PF=the predicted peak force; A, B, C, D, and E are constants; and m, n, l, and p are integers; I L is a low energy incident intensity of an x-ray beam; and I H is a high energy incident intensity of an x-ray beam.