Applied Research Note: The applicability of bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) to determine the quality of liquid egg albumen

Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is a rapid technology (1 sec) used to determine body composition of various species, animal health, and quality of food by measuring electrical properties. The objective of this study was to evaluate the applicability of BIA to determine egg quality. A total of 1,000 freshly laid eggs (washed and sanitized) were randomly allocated to two treatments based on storage temperature; stored at 4°C (recommended ideal storage temperature) and at 22°C (accelerated aging). Randomly sampled eggs (n=20 per treatment per sampling) were evaluated for the following attributes: egg weight, thick albumen height (H A ), Haugh unit (HU), yolk index (YI), egg albumen pH, and BIA (resistance, reactance) at 0, 2, 5, 8, 14, 24, 29, 35 days of storage. The BIA was conducted using a hand-held device on thick albumen after separating the egg yolk. In this study, irrespective of storage temperature, the BIA parameters and albumen pH increased ( P < 0.001), on the contrary, H A , HU, and YI decreased ( P < 0.001) with storage time. For egg stored at 22°C, the results showed very strong correlations between R and H A (r= -0.92, P < 0.001), R and HU (r= -0.93, P < 0.001), and R and YI (r= -0.89, P < 0.001), while strong correlations between R and H A (r= -0.73, P < 0.001), and R and HU (r= -0.73, P < 0.001) for eggs stored at 4°C. In conclusion, BIA can be used as a rapid method to evaluate the quality and freshness of eggs with potential application for liquid egg products.