In my other life (science) I've been reading about measurement theory (Dover just reprinted the multivolume set, Foundations of Measurement by Krantz et al.). It's pretty abstract stuff (Archimedean simply ordered groups make an early appearance) but the problem is not at all abstract: how do you assign quantitative representations to qualitative structures. Some things are pretty hard to measure and recently I ran across an interesting example: what determines the perception of "crumbliness" in food. Food researchers wanted to know what determined that perception in whey proteins and polysaccharide mixed gels so they could better engineer semi-solid foods:
Crumbliness - defined as the extent and the ease by which a food falls apart on compression in the mouth - is a desirable attribute in a range of products, particularly cheese, processed meat and confectionery. Since it often affects consumer acceptance, it is used as a measure for quality control in manufacturing.Researchers from the Wageningen Centre for Food Scientists and Nizo Food Research set out to examine the relationship between crumbliness and gels' physical and structural properties. Their aim was to facilitate the control and engineering of this property. (Food Navigator)
How to measure crumbliness? Three stand-ins were used: ease of compression along a single axis; a test that measured the speed with which a wedge initiated fracture of the material; and a compression-decompression test. They prepared whey protein isolate (WPI) from commercially available ingredients (glucono-δ-lactone, vitamin C, gellan gum, locust bean gum, κ-carrageenan, GSK-carrageena, and a high methyl pectin) and made their measurements with a confocal laser scanning microscope. Pretty fancy stuff to understand crumbliness. Not as fancy as the results, though:
The researchers found a strong association between the crumbly properties of the WPI and WPI mixed gels are strongly related to breakdown mechanisms - which in turn are dependent on their viscoelastic properties.
These properties come about as a result of the balance between elastically stored energy and energy dissipation during formation (stored energy being determined as a percentage of recoverable energy in a compression-decompression test).
The most crumbly gels were found to be those that break readily via a free-running crack - that is, with high recoverable energy. The least crumbly gels were seen to have slow, yielding-like breakdown.
It would be easy to make fun of the high tech tools used to investigate "mouth feel" when we don't know how flu spreads from person to person.
So I will. Too much energy is being devoted to this free-running crack and not enough is recoverable for useful purposes. It's all about priorities.
- Log in to post comments
Here, here, revere!
Also, crumbly processed meat? Eww...
Would it be too much to ask food processors not to put whey powder and other milk derivatives in meat products? Surely there are enough people out there who, for one reason or another, don't want dairy in their meat to make up a considerable market segment.
I'm so allergic to dairy products (yay fun histamine reactions!) and so lactose intolerant, if they're putting whey powder in a meat product, I ain't buying it, no matter how attractive the mouth-feel is. Every relatively unstrict kosher-keeping person would want this, too, as well as the few members of Christian cults who do the same thing (don't laugh, my grandfather is one, and yes, it's a cult).
For what it's worth, this isn't just a problem with meat. Can food processing science come up with some other way of improving the texture of prepared foods without adding a common allergen?
Strangely provocative title, revere.
another: Moi?
Two days late, but anyway. I grew up in Sacramento and had I gone to UC Davis instead of UCSC I would have definitely done a Food Engineering minor to my Comp Sci major. I would LOVE to know that stuff.
Any discipline with words like "mouthfeel" is awesome.