Computed tomography (CT) allows you to see, in a non-invasive way, the composition of materials or products. For this reason, it can be applied to live animals in order to carry out genetic improvement studies, growth curves, studies on fat deposition according to diet, genetics, sex, age, etc. It can also be applied to animal carcasses (or parts) to obtain its tissue composition as well as other relevant quality characteristics such as fat and muscle thickness, areas, volumes, etc. In this sense, it is being applied in channel classification issues, in order to obtain the percentage of lean of these and use it as a reference system for classification equipment in the slaughter line.
CT also has important potential for optimizing food processes as it is a non-destructive technology that allows the evaluation of the same product throughout the process. The fact that the salt and water content in a given area can be predicted makes CT very useful for optimizing salting and curing processes. It can also be used to optimize freezing processes, among others.

X-rays emitted by the CT equipment lose some of their initial energy as they pass through the tissues. This energy attenuation is directly related to the density of matter, producing images with more contrast with the increase in its density. This makes it possible to obtain images where the different tissues can be differentiated and to obtain different quality parameters that are related to them (fat and lean thicknesses, area, volumes, fat and lean content, etc.). That is why it is a very useful technology in terms of channel quality and parts. In addition, salt has a higher density than meat and appears in images with more contrast. Therefore, curing processes can be easily evaluated using this technology.