Quantitative evaluation of marbling (intramuscular fat) in beef meat is an important attribute with respect to quality. The chemical analysis, which is a destructive method, is the gold standard to evaluate the quantity of marbling in meat. It is a destructive and tedious method which does not give any information of marbling distribution in tissues. In this paper, an operational and flexible new method for a non-destructive measurement of the marbling quantity and distribution in beef meat is proposed. Based on the absorption and reflection properties of the fat when exposed to near infrared (NIR) light (940 nm), it is possible to show and evaluate the marbling under the surface, which is not accessible by visual methods commonly proposed in computer vision using visible (VIS) image. The results obtained by the proposed method (non-destructive) were compared with results obtained by chemical analysis (Soxhlet) of the muscle fat content. Preliminary results indicate that it is possible to evaluate the composition and the distribution of marbling in lean beef muscle
