MINI REVIEW article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition and Food Science Technology
Multiscale Time-Domain NMR for Structural, Water, and Texture Characterization of Meat and Plant-Based Food Matrices: A Mini Review
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be'er Sheva, Israel
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Abstract
Time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR) is a powerful, non-destructive method for probing water mobility, molecular dynamics, and hierarchical structure in complex food matrices. Over the past several decades, numerous studies have demonstrated that relaxation, diffusion, and relaxometry-derived parameters are closely linked to microstructural constraints, water distribution, texture, and water-holding capacity (WHC) in both muscle and plant-based systems. This mini review synthesizes foundational and recent advances into a unified multiscale TD-NMR framework spanning molecular (µs–ms), mesoscopic (µm), and macroscopic (mm–cm) levels. We show how T₁/T₂ relaxation, diffusion coefficients, and multidimensional correlation methods can be mapped onto structural and functional properties of native meat and engineered plant-based matrices. Integrating these TD-NMR modalities with microstructural imaging and texture profiling provides a quantitative approach for mechanistic understanding and product optimization. Future opportunities include machine-learning tools for multidimensional datasets, physics-guided inversion algorithms, and the development of industrial, inline TD-NMR sensing platforms.
Summary
Keywords
Diffusion NMR, Food matrices, Meat systems, multiscale analysis, Plant-based analogs, relaxometry, texture, time-domain NMR
Received
18 December 2025
Accepted
20 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Wiesman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Zeev Wiesman
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.