Chicken ‘Woody Breast’ Detection Improved with Advanced Machine Learning Model

The AHA! Team — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 05:13:35 +0000

University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture via EurekAlert! – Accuracy improved to 95 percent with hyperspectral imaging It’s called “woody breast” and for consumers it can mean a chewier chicken sandwich, but for the industry it can mean up to $200 million annual yield loss. Work done by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station is not only making woody breast easier to detect in chicken meat but is accurate up to 95 percent of the time. Hyperspectral camera and machine learning The development could help improve quality assurance and customer confidence in one of the state’s most economically important agricultural products. What allows researchers to see inside the meat is a combination of a hyperspectral camera, which examines the meat through various energy wavelengths, and machine learning to interpret what the camera sees. “We’ve been able to improve accuracy of detection of woody breast by utilizing machine learning to analyze complex data from images with a hyperspectral camera,” said Dongyi Wang, an assistant professor in the biological and agricultural engineering department for the experiment station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “The next step will be trying to integrate the system online and make this beneficial for stakeholders,” Wang said, noting this specific application of image analysis had not been done before. Loss in premium meat “Woody breast” meat is harder and chewier than normal chicken breast, but it is still safe to eat, according to Casey Owens, professor of poultry processing and products for the experiment station and a co-author of the study. When detected by processers, either by humans or computer-assisted imaging technology, she said the meat is diverted from whole-breast packaging for further processing into products including chicken nuggets and patties. The loss in premium as a whole-muscle product accounts for yield loss as high as $200 million in Arkansas and over $1 billion in direct and indirect costs annually across the United States poultry industry, Owens added. Up to 20 percent of chicken breast meat can have the defect, which is more common in larger birds of 8 to 9 pounds versus 6- to 7-pound birds. Hyperspectral imaging Hyperspectral imaging is a rapid, non-invasive way to capture detailed data about objects and their composition. This data can be used to classify food products according to food quality, consumer preferences and other product requirements. But hyperspectral images come with tons of data. That’s where machine learning comes in. Chaitanya Pallerla, a food science graduate student who has been working on the project for the past two years with Wang as his adviser, said the new machine learning model is called NAS-WD. When correlated with known data about the “woodiness” of chicken breasts, the model allows for deeper and wider analysis of hyperspectral images to identify the defect. Develop a new model “In hyperspectral imaging, there are common machine learning models being used, but we were able to develop a new model that could be well-suited for correlating more than two variables,” Pallerla said. “We kind of took two different models, made a few changes, and put them together to detect patterns better and correlate the hyperspectral data with hardness of the chicken meat.” The results of their research were published in the journal Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture under the title “Neural network architecture search enabled wide-deep learning (NAS-WD) for spatially heterogenous property awared chicken woody breast classification and hardness regression.” The results showed that NAS-WD can classify three woody breast defect levels with an overall accuracy of 95 percent, outperforming the traditional models like the Support Vector Machine and Multi-Layer Perception, which offered 80 percent and about 73 percent accuracy, respectively. Push broom Wang said the study offers an example of how to use new algorithms to mine data and dig into key information. The form of hyperspectral imaging used in the research is called “push broom,” which takes an image of several objects once every 40 seconds, compared to a more common industry method of a “snapshot,” which takes an image of individual objects as fast as every 30 milliseconds. The “snapshots” have a lower resolution than the “push broom” method, but software upgrades may one day provide higher resolution for “snapshot” images, Pallerla said. Wang said his team is working on deploying this technology in the real-time system. The study was supported in part by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, project award nos. 2023-70442-39232 and 2024-67022-42882, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture. Journal Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture DOI 10.1016/j.aiia.2024.11.003 To read the original article click here.

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Big Chickens Create Big Problems: Antibiotics Are Only One of Them

AHA Publisher — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 07:00:26 +0000

Patrick Tims via NaturalHealth365 – Chicken is the average person’s meat of choice, yet most people don’t think about how this commercially produced food makes its way to the dinner table. This tasty meat is beginning to pose some serious health concerns for reasons that will surprise some readers. In particular, medical professionals, nutritionists, and health experts are questioning whether the antibiotics provided to chickens might be harmful to human health. The question is whether the antibiotics and sustenance used to make chickens large and supposedly “healthy” are a net negative. The little-known truth is that antibiotics are only one of many potential health-related issues tied to industrial chicken processing operations. So let’s take a look at the truth about the meat industry. Antibiotics Pumped into Chickens Have Detrimental Effects Though the average person might not care that the massive chickens living at animal farms are loaded up with antibiotics, those who study human health and biology for a living are beginning to question whether the use of such antibiotics is prudent. Antibiotics are given to chickens at industrial facilities to ward off infection amidst overcrowded living conditions. Antibiotics also help fatten birds without spending on additional feed that would take a chunk out of the enterprise’s bottom line. As a result, chickens have ballooned from their average weight of a couple of pounds back in the 1920s to over half a dozen pounds. It merely takes two months for a chicken to reach six pounds, yet it took nearly twice as long for the chickens of “yesteryear” to hit 2.5 pounds on the scale. Though the industry’s leaders don’t like to admit it, the truth is an investigation conducted by Reuters in 2014 found the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) passed guidance that restricted antibiotics, yet companies ramped up the use of antibiotics all the more. Even one of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s suppliers, Koch Foods, was nabbed red-handed using antibiotics. Bigger Isn’t Always Better There is a good argument to be made that increasing the size of chickens is a positive as it generates more sustenance. Though today’s chickens are larger than those of a couple of decades ago, they need about 7% less food per pound for optimal growth. In addition, larger chickens tend to have more health problems, including leg issues, as they carry additional weight. However, farmers have started to breed chickens for optimal leg strength. The question is whether the industry’s leaders are succeeding in establishing the delicate balance between chickens living with a modicum of dignity and optimizing their value. The modern chicken farming industry is economically efficient, providing customers affordable meat without a lengthy wait. As a result, chicken has become the country’s most popular type of meat and also one of the country’s most economically efficient meals. Antibiotics Will Be Used for the Foreseeable Future If factory farmers were to eliminate antibiotics altogether, an additional 175,000 tons of feed would be required to support the country’s turkey population. Furthermore, if antibiotics were not included in animal feed, that sustenance would prove significantly less efficient, and animals wouldn’t make proper use of the available nutrients. As a result, it is safe to say antibiotics will likely continue playing a role in factory farming. If you’re looking for a healthier alternative, find a local (organic) farmer to supply your food needs. These local farmers tend to avoid the use of toxic drugs, provide a healthier environment for their animals and do not feed their animals genetically manipulated food. Sources for this article include: ChildrensHealthDefense.org To read the original article click here.

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Chicken ‘Woody Breast’ Detection Improved with Advanced Machine Learning Model

Big Chickens Create Big Problems: Antibiotics Are Only One of Them