Characterization of food stuffs using Magnetic Resonance Elastography

Viscoelastic properties of formulated food products are often associated with the textural properties of the material. Plasticity provides an important food quality factor. Unfortunately, viscoelastic properties of food stuffs are normally measured in the bulk phase, prior to packaging. Here we describe the application of a Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE) method using a specially designed sample holder for fast, reproducible and non-invasive measurement of spatially averaged viscoelastic constants of packaged samples. MRE experiments provide viscoelastic data as a function of position within samples and can be performed prior and post packaging, on samples including those with an optically opaque container or wrapper.