Insight Into Consumers’ Assessments of Biscuit Texture Based on Mastication Analysis – Hardness Versus Crunchiness

Abstract

Nineteen ordinary consumers assessed the hardness, crunchiness and crumbliness of a series of biscuits exhibiting texture differences. Chewing patterns were obtained from all of the subjects eating the same samples by simultaneous recording of masticatory muscle activity and jaw movement. There was a strongly significant inverse correlation between hardness and crumbliness and weaker but significant correlations between hardness and crunchiness (positive) and between crunchiness and crumbliness (negative). The hardness/crumbliness dimension was well represented by several instrumental measures of the mechanical properties of the samples and by several descriptors assessed by a trained sensory panel. Crunchiness gave ambiguous relationships with these objective measures. Chewing data indicated an increase in masticatory muscle effort between the first 5 chews and the next 5 chews with a subsequent decline in effort to the end of the chewing sequence. This was associated with a transfer of effort from a principally compressive force during the initial chews, to a mixture of compressive (fracture) force and grinding (shear) force during later chews. Mastication of the harder and crunchier samples required more total chewing effort. Principal component analysis demonstrated a relationship between sensory hardness (and conversely, crumbliness) and the chewing effort during the first 5 chews, and between crunchiness and the chewing effort during the subsequent 5 chews. This study indicates the importance of the temporal changes occurring in the sample during mastication to perception of textural characteristics.

Characterization of texture attributes of raw almond using a trained sensory panel

“…The correlations between the quality attributes "Crunchiness"-"Hardness", "Crispness"-"Hardness" and "Crispness"-"Crunchiness", reached values r = 0.98, 0.86 and 0.83, respectively. These texture parameters are correlated positively among them, and as observed before similar results were reached on the correlation "hardness" and "crunchiness" on biscuits (0.84) [34]. This positive correlation between "hardness" and "crispness" and "crunchiness" is explained because these attributes are intimately related to the fracture properties of food.…”

On the assessment of fracture in brittle foods II. Biting or chewing?

“…Discrepancies in the relationships between instrumental measurements and the sensory assessment by consumers or trained subjects could come from the criteria used for the judgement (Brown, Langley, & Braxton, 1998). This is exactly what the present work confirmed, for certain foods (almonds in this case) depending on how we instructed the assessors to rate crispness would be the result obtained, and also how it correlated to the instrumental measurements.…”

Standard Scales for Crispness, Crackliness and Crunchiness in Dry and Wet Foods: Relationship With Acoustical Determinations

“…Chewing with molars Brown et al 1998 Crunchy would be associated with a hard and dense texture that fractures without prior deformation producing a loud, low pitched sound that is repeated during several chews. Crunchy is more relevant to fruits and vegetables when compared to crispness.…”