"Dave" wrote in message
news:RjEwk.582$Dj1.535@trnddc02...

"Jon Mcleod" wrote in message
m...
PN2222A wrote:

You will want to apply the field directly to conductive plates which are
in contact with the meat -- if you have any air gap between a plate and
the meat,
the voltage drop will essentially be all across the air gap, none across
the test sample.

I've been thinking about this. There is a question on how to get an
e-field into the meat, and there is a question about whether bacteria
exist in the meat.

i think its normally assumed that bacteria contaminate the surface of cut
meat during handling and from exposure to the air. ground meat is more
likely to contain bacteria because it is ground... that is, the outer,
possibly contaminated, surface is cut and chopped and put in contact with
lots more meat surface, so bacteria can get spread throughout the
mixture... and of course there is always the contamination probability on
the grinding equipment which is much more complicated than a simple knife
or saw used for sliced meats.


along the lines of another poster i would propose an alternate experiment
that could be much more closely controlled. instead of starting with
unknown contamination in meat, which is in itself a non-homogonous
substance, it would be easier to setup and control a standard Petri dish
contaminated with known bacteria samples. Those should be easily provided
by any decent biology lab, and can be properly analyzed and scored using
standard methods for measuring bacterial growth. Those methods are well
documented, and again, any decent biology lab should be able to assist in
the analysis.