Abstract

Near infrared (NIR) reflectance spectroscopy was used to determine the chemical composition of chicken breast and thigh muscles. Samples from twenty-four males and twenty-four females were scanned from 400 to 2500 nm, both as intact muscle and as comminuted (minced) tissue. Modified partial least squares (MPLS) regression on scatter corrected spectra (standard normal variates and Detrend) gave calibration models for chemical variables from NIR measurements on the defrosted minced breast samples having multivariate correlation coefficients and standard errors of calibration of 0.995 (2.4), 0.974 (2.11) and 0.946 (4.55) for moisture, crude protein and fat in g kg ⁻¹, respectively.

© 1996 NIR Publications