Texture and Rheology in Food and Health

Abstract

The importance of texture control in food and health in Japan was discussed on the occasion of the celebration of the 100 th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil. Dietary patterns in both countries, recent research activities, and governmental recommendation of food intake are also described, including some historical changes. Recent advances in study on texture terms, functional foods, food gels, and gelling process in the food science and technology in Japan are also reviewed.Keywords: hydrocolloids, gel, texture, rheology, language, mastication, deglutition *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: nisinari@life.osaka-cu.ac.jp IntroductionAlong with flavor, aroma, appearance, and color, texture is one of the most important determining factors for the palatability of foods, and therefore many studies have been conducted on the texture of foods. The importance of texture and the wide-ranging research are the reasons why the 1

Oral processing of emulsion systems from a colloidal perspective

“…The importance of food texture to safe swallowing has recently received attention. 99 For the design of a food with special oral processing attributes, the rheological properties of the food and thus the bolus play a key role. In comparison with a thin bolus, a cohesive and thicker bolus tends to reside for a relatively longer time in the mouth.…”

Rheology of food materials

“…emulsions and food suspensions, do have aggregate sizes of several μm, food manufacturing operations aim at changing the microstructure on this length-scale. In classical food technology and food engineering it is therefore of main interest to control the final food structure and its perception and texture [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. For food quality control, relating textural perception to physical measurements of food structure, such as rheological properties, requires understanding of the breakdown pathway of food during mastication and the correlation of instrumental readings to decisions taken by humans.…”

Convolutional Neural Network based Estimation of Gel-like Food Texture by a Robotic Sensing System

“…Such gel-like foods are soft and fragile, allowing them to be broken up by the tongue without the use of the teeth. However, from the viewpoint of quality of life for persons under nursing-care, it is desirable for such foods to have a delicious taste while maintaining safety during mastication and swallowing [4]. Deliciousness depends not only on the chemical properties such as taste or aroma, but also on physical properties such as texture [5].…”