Investigating the influence of marination and storage on microwave dielectric properties of chicken breast meat

Simultaneous influence of marination and storage on dielectric properties of chicken meat was investigated through dielectric measurements at microwave frequencies. For this purpose, an open-ended coaxial probe and a vector network analyzer were used for measurement of the dielectric properties between 200 MHz and 20 GHz and at a room temperature of 22 °C. For all chicken samples, the same general trend was observed for the variations of dielectric properties with frequency. The dielectric constant decreased with frequency with significant slope change at about 5 GHz. The dielectric loss factor decreased sharply up to 2 GHz and then increased with frequency showing a broad relaxation above 8 GHz. Values of the dielectric constant and dielectric loss factor measured for marinated chicken meat samples were greater than those of non-marinated samples and this was more significant for the dielectric loss factor at lower frequencies. In addition, each level of marination was distinctly observed over the same frequency range. Investigation of the influence of storage revealed that the dielectric loss factor of marinated samples decreased over the storage period while those of non-marinated sample slightly increased with storage time. For both marinated and non-marinated samples, water loss increased with storage time.