TASTE, TEXTURE AND A BIT OF SOUND

Scientists assign all food tastes to one of five broad categories

• Sweet• Salty• Bitter• Sour• and the newest fifth

taste-Umami

• Sweet and salty are the least sensitive

• Bitter is the most sensitive

Four of the areas on your tongue

• 1. Bitter

• 2. Sour

• 3. Salty

• 4. Sweet

Taste Bud

• 1. Tongue surface

• 2. Connective tissue

• 3. Taste pore• 4. Taste

receptor cell• 5. Nerves to

the brain

How taste evolved• The brain of the starving

Neanderthal would signal the sugar taste receptors in the mouth that it needed carbohydrates to fuel the body for those long hunts and periods without food.

• Salt is essential for life as it helps balance electrolytes, prevent hyperthermia and regulate fluids and nutrients in our cells.

• Foods that were excessively sour or bitter were signs of danger as they are found in many poisons and rancid food.

• These all make for powerful life threatening circumstances that have brought these taste sensations to the forefront.

• Taste-chemical agents that dissolve in saliva and stimulate the papillae located on the taste buds.

• Aroma-refers to any volatized odor that is received into the olfactory bulb behind our nose.

• When the brain combines the taste stimuli with the aroma stimuli, flavor is perceived.

TEXTURE• Texture refers to those

qualities of a food that can be felt with the fingers, tongue, palate, or teeth.

• Foods have different textures, such as crisp crackers or potato chips, crunchy celery, hard candy, tender steaks, chewy chocolate chip cookies and creamy ice cream.

• Texture is also an index of quality.

• The texture of a food can change as it is stored, for various reasons.

• Turgor- When fruits or vegetables lose water during storage they wilt or lose their turgor pressure, and a crisp apple becomes unacceptable and leathery on the outside.

• Bread can become hard and stale in storage. Potato chips & crackers can lose their crispness and become mushy.

• Products like ice cream can become gritty due to precipitation of lactose and growth of ice crystal in the freezer, if the temperature is allowed to fluctuate, allowing thawing and refreezing.

• From a sensory perspective, the texture of a food is evaluated when it is chewed.

• The teeth, tongue and jaw exert a force on the food, and how easily it breaks or flows in the mouth determines whether it is perceived as hard, brittle, thick, runny, and so on.

Mouthfeel

• Mouthfeel is a general term used to describe the textural properties of a food as perceived in the mouth.

• Mouthfeel is affected by temperature.

• A warm juicy steak gives a moist , tender feel in the mouth.

• The same steak tomorrow, cold, sliced in a sandwich may feel tough & chewy.

Sound

• Sound and texture work together in food quality.

• We expect certain foods to sound a certain way.– Chips, bacon, apple

• Or we expect certain foods to have no sound.– Applesauce, oatmeal, mashed

potatoes

• Food preferences are based on appearance, flavor, aroma, texture and mouthfeel.

• Only when all these work together does a food stay on our list of “favorite foods”.

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