Steak-Selecting Infrared Cell Phone Camera Will Rate Your Meat
Selecting a prime cut of beef at the supermarket can be a daunting task. After all, everybody can't bring along a personal butcher to help determine the quality of meat. But almost everybody does carry a cell phone equipped with a camera, and that could soon become an essential tool for any trip to the grocery store. According to the Examiner, scientists in Japan are developing ways to use infrared cameras for more accurately determining which slices of beef are tastier than others. To do so, the teams from the Gifu Prefectural Research Institute of Information Technology and the Gifu Prefectural Livestock Research Institute snap a picture of some Hida-gyu (high-grade Japanese beef) and analyze the amount of Oleic acid in the meat. The theory is that higher levels of the acid make the beef more tender and fragrant, in turn making it much more tasty. It might sound crazy, but, at a taste test held by the scientists in late January, about 60-percent of the participants preferred cuts of beef with higher levels of Oleic acid.
What does this mean for the American consumer? Probably not a lot right now. For one, our cell phones aren't capable of taking infrared pictures. Plus, depending on where you live, the selection of high-grade Japanese beef could be slim. Until this changes, we'll just have to stick with the tried-and-true (and very unscientific) method of poking the cellophane-wrapped meat with our fingers and hoping for the best. [From: the Examiner]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Linja said 4:21PM on 2-02-2010
That's clever, but I was hoping to read that they found a way to judge doneness in a restaurant using infrared. Even my favorite steakhouse has trouble getting it right.
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