Study on the comprehensive evaluation of air dried beef quality with multiple variables

For comprehensive evaluation of air dried beef with different quality, samples of four kinds of air dried beef were analyzed in the view of nutrition, taste, colour and safety indexes.By Duncan test, the differences among samples were analyzed, the results indicated that no significant difference were found for L*among four samples, significant differences were found for parameters of fat content, tenderness, a*and b*for two or three samples, and significant differences were found for parameters of p H value, Na Cl content and content of total acid for four samples ( p < 0.05) .The dimension of indexes was reduced from 13 to 2 by method of principal component analysis. Four air dried beef samples were discriminated by principal component analysis, with sample scatter plot changing with sodium content, total acid and other indicators. In the loading plot, nutrition, taste, colour and safety indexes distributed in different areas. Four air dried beef samples were clustered into different groups accoding to the sample information. Combined with statistical analysis method, the quality of air dried beef samples were evaluated in the view of nutrition, taste, colour and safety.