Ohmic processing: Electrical conductivities of pork cuts

Efficacy of ohmic processing can be influenced by the conductivities of individual components within the food and their behaviour and interactions during the heating process. This study relates to the determination of electrical conductivities of a selection of pork meat cuts used in meat processing. Conductivity measurements of pork cuts indicated that lean is highly conductive compared to fat and addition of fat to lean reduced the overall conductivity but the addition of fat over the range (i.e. 0–100%) was non-linear. Light microscopy suggested that differences in the conductivities of leg and shoulder lean (entire) (0.76 vs. 0.64 S m−1, respectively) could be due to the denser muscle fibre structure and/or higher intra-muscular fat in shoulder vs. leg. This could be of significance for ohmic processing of full muscle products.