Influence of heat treatment methods on the color characteristics of meat

The production of food products with a sufficient amount of functional ingredients is an urgent task for the modern food industry, since the health of every person and nation is largely determined by the diet. An important role in the formation of the range of functional food products is assigned to the development of new recipes and technologies for meat products. In this work, horse meat was used as raw meat. When developing a horse meat product, different methods of heat treatment of the main raw materials were used: the traditional method - frying and stewing, cooking in a combi oven, sous-vide technology. A comparative analysis of heat treatment of meat has been carried out. Investigations were carried out using digital image processing methods to compare the color change of meat samples during cooking by the above methods. The ability to select a fragment of an image for a more detailed study with the output of statistical information about the number of pixels by secondary or tertiary colors has been implemented. The geometric characteristics of objects are determined - area, perimeter, height, width, as well as color characteristics for the selected color components. Using the method of digital image processing, the processes occurring during heat treatment have been established, which makes it possible to regulate and correct the technology of cooking meat products, analyze the geometric and color characteristics of finished products. A program and method for determining the color characteristics of the meat samples under study have been developed.