Experimental Study for the Tenderness of Meat using Underwater Shock Waves Generation by Wire Electrical Discharges

High age of the population advances in the world. The consumption of meat increases. Some methods of softening of edible meat are methods such as electric energy, pressure, heating and biological. The development of the method of the tenderness that is the high efficiency which can apply to the volume of production of the meat is expected. The National Institute of Technology, Okinawa College (OkNCT) has developed a food processing machine that generates underwater shock waves through wire electrical discharge. The machine can be used for sterilization, milling, tenderness, and extraction among others. In this study, we experimentally examined the conditions for food tenderness using pork as the food material in the experiments. The relationship of the tenderness of edible meat measured with a durometer with the number of underwater shock wave generation, and the distance of the shock wave generation point from the edible meat and reflectance backing material were shown experimentally. The prototype design of the pressure vessel for the processing of the meat was shown. The possibility of designing and manufacturing of a pressure vessel according to the required tenderness was shown.