MLBA12: December / January 2010

 

 

 

 

Two of the major concerns in the meat industry today are food safety and inconsistent meat quality, especially tenderness. A means of controlling and assuring a meat product's safety and tenderness level is essential. Tenderness is the major criterion driving consumer's decisions to purchase or re-purchase meat. Unfortunately, tenderness has proven to be the most difficult quality factor for meat-producers and meat-packers to manage. Thus, a commer­cial method to ensure consistently tender meat products is of primary importance for enhanced consumer's acceptance of meat.

 

The concept of tenderising meat using short wave from underwa­ter detonation of explosives, called Hydrodynamic Pressure Processing (HDP), was first patented by Godfrey in 1970. Hydrodynamics refers to the motion of the fluid and the forces act­ing on solid bodies immersed in these fluid. The HDP process should not be confused with research using High Hydrostatic Pressure (HHP), which was introduced by a Japanese scien­tist and dates back to the end of the 19th century. Hydrostatic refers to the characteristics of liquids at rest and the pressure in the liquid or exerted by a liquid on an immersed object.

 

HDP involves underwater deto­nation of a high-energy explosive in a containment vessel to generate a shock-wave pressure front at veloci­ties exceeding the speed of sound. The shock wave passes through the liquid medium and vacuumed-packaged meat. Food products that contain a considerable amount of water and lit­tle dissolved gas have compressibility properties similar to that of water.

 

The explosives used in the HDP develop a very rapid and shattering action when exploded by detonation. This shattering power is referred to as the brisance of the explosive. By varying the composition (binary, mo­lecular) and the shape (cylindrical and rectangular) of the explosive, the brisance properties can be adjusted to suit the particular purpose for which it is to be used.