New gadget offers easy test of freshness of pork

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail CRI, April 7, 2015
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The TSD pen tester used by the Beijing news journalist to test pork samples from a local market. The photo is published on the verified Beijing News Weibo account on April 7, 2015. [Photo: The Beijing News Weibo/ Rao Pei]



After China's pork industry was rattled by several high-profile meat scandals, netizens have come up with a quick and easy way of testing the freshness of pork.

Netizens recently posted that in addition to just relying on the taste, smell or texture of the meat gauges its freshness, now you can also use a digital Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) pen tester, that is commonly used in homes to test water quality. Several netizens had found through trial and error that the fresher the pork, the lower the conductivity value shown on the TSD tester.

Zhu Yi, an associate professor from the College of Food Science & Nutritional Engineering at the China Agricultural University has also confirmed the reliability of the TSD test. Zhu said that the conductivity value of the TSD tester corresponded to the results from national standards set for pork and therefore it can be trusted.

A journalist from Beijing News had also undertaken an extensive field trial and concluded that the TSD tester can be used to gauge the freshness of pork accurately. The journalist randomly chose a local market and tested three samples of different quality after 10 minutes and 36 hours of purchase.

The three samples had different conductivity values when tested at room temperature after 10 minutes of purchase reflecting the different levels of quality.

Then the journalist left one portion of meat from each sample at room temperature, and put another portion in the freezer. The journalist found that after freezing for 36 hours, the conductivity value of the three different samples was 14 percent, 13 percent, 35 percent respectively. But the readings for the portions that were left under room temperature showed that the conductivity value jumped up to 215 percent, 19 percent, 70 percent respectively.

As this experiment suggests, anyone who is concerned about the freshness of pork can now use this affordable household test kit to allay their fears.

The photo shows the conductivity values of three different samples tested by the Beijing News journalist. The photo is published on the verified Beijing News Weibo account on April 7, 2015. [Photo: The Beijing News Weibo/ Rao Pei]

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