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Advances in Meat Quality and Quality Control
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Advances in Meat Quality and Quality Control

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Meat".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2026) | Viewed by 1609

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Hongman Hou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Marine Food Processing & Safety Control, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, China
Interests: food safety; food processing and preservation; fermentation microorganisms; quorum sensing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Meat, as a primary source of high-quality protein for humans, has become a focal point in the transformation and advancement of the food industry. This is driven by changes in its nutritional composition during processing, quality fluctuations during storage, and the need for precise detection of its quality and main components. The core issues in meat research include evaluating the impact of different processing conditions and techniques on meat quality; analyzing the formation, migration, and accumulation of hazardous substances during processing, developing preservation technologies and shelf-life prediction methods; and exploring the application of emerging non-destructive testing techniques for meat authenticity verification and quality control.

Prof. Dr. Hongman Hou
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • meat quality and control
  • preservation and shelf-life
  • non-destructive testing

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 1625 KB  
Article
Caraway Essential Oil Nanoparticles in Prolonged Stability and Sensory Improvement of Fresh Pork Sausages
by Nenad Jevremović, Božana Odžaković, Natalija Đorđević, Dani Dordevic, Ivica Zdravković, Ivana Karabegović and Bojana Danilović
Foods 2026, 15(9), 1591; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods15091591 - 4 May 2026
Viewed by 464
Abstract
Caraway essential oil (CEO) and chitosan-based nanoparticles incorporating CEO (CNPs CEO) were evaluated as natural preservatives for fresh pork sausages stored at +4 °C for five days. The chemical composition of CEO was characterized by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and gas chromatography with [...] Read more.
Caraway essential oil (CEO) and chitosan-based nanoparticles incorporating CEO (CNPs CEO) were evaluated as natural preservatives for fresh pork sausages stored at +4 °C for five days. The chemical composition of CEO was characterized by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC/FID); carvone (92.5%) and limonene (5.8%) were identified as dominant components. Eight experimental treatments were applied: control, CEO at 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 mg/g, chitosan nanoparticles (CNPs), and CNPs CEO at 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 mg/g. Encapsulation efficiency of CEO in chitosan nanoparticles was 67.7 ± 1.91%. Microbiological quality (total bacterial count (TBC), lactic acid bacteria, yeasts and moulds), lipid oxidation (TBARS), pH, and sensory attributes of raw and thermally processed sausages were monitored throughout storage. CEO reduced microbial growth and lipid oxidation in a concentration-dependent manner, while CNPs CEO formulations showed markedly superior performance. The CNPs CEO 0.6 mg/g treatment achieved the greatest inhibitory effect on all microbiological parameters, reducing TBC for 1.6 log CFU/g and limiting lipid oxidation, yielding final malondialdehyde values of 1.15 mg MDA/kg, approximately 50% lower than the control (2.18 mg MDA/kg). Sensory evaluation indicated that CNPs CEO-treated sausages maintained acceptable colour, odour, juiciness, texture, and overall acceptability throughout the storage period. The sample treated with CNPs CEO 0.6 mg/g remained above the acceptability level for all analyzed parameters for 5 days of storage, while the control became unacceptable for lipid oxidation on the fifth day and sensory unacceptable after the third day. These findings demonstrate that the application of CNPs CEO in sausage production enhances their stability, shelf life, and sensory characteristics, indicating a promising no-additive strategy in the industrial production of fresh pork sausages. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Meat Quality and Quality Control)
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17 pages, 4034 KB  
Article
Non-Destructive Assessment of Beef Freshness Using Visible and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy with Interpretable Machine Learning
by Ruoxin Chen, Wei Ning, Xufen Xie, Jingran Bi, Gongliang Zhang and Hongman Hou
Foods 2026, 15(4), 728; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods15040728 - 15 Feb 2026
Viewed by 747
Abstract
Beef freshness is a critical indicator of meat quality and safety, and its rapid, non-destructive detection is of significant importance for ensuring consumer health and enhancing quality control throughout the meat industry chain. This study developed a novel methodology for non-destructive beef freshness [...] Read more.
Beef freshness is a critical indicator of meat quality and safety, and its rapid, non-destructive detection is of significant importance for ensuring consumer health and enhancing quality control throughout the meat industry chain. This study developed a novel methodology for non-destructive beef freshness assessment using visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) spectroscopy combined with machine learning, explainable artificial intelligence (xAI) techniques, and the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) framework. An improved hybrid heuristic method, particle swarm optimization–genetic algorithm (PSOGA), was used for feature selection, optimizing the wavelength subset for predicting beef quality indicators, including total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) and color parameters (L*, a*, and b*). The eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) was employed for regression modeling, and the results showed that PSOGA significantly outperforms traditional methods, with the PSOGA-XGBoost model achieving a satisfactory prediction accuracy (R2p values of 0.9504 for TVB-N, 0.9540 for L*, 0.8939 for a*, and 0.9416 for b*). The SHAP framework identified the key wavelengths as 1236 nm and 1316 nm for TVB-N, 728 nm for L*, 576 nm for a*, and 604 nm for b*, providing valuable insights into the determination of key wavelengths and enhancing the interpretability of the model. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of PSOGA and SHAP, providing a promising analytical method for monitoring beef freshness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Meat Quality and Quality Control)
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