Probing the Sensory Properties of Food Materials with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Imaging

Abstract

Consumers are becoming increasingly interested in the nutrition, science, and safety of the foods they consume. They want high quality, economically priced, healthy, and convenient food that satisfies their sensory expectations. To meet the consumers’ needs and expectations, a thorough understanding of the chemical, biological, physical, and sensory aspects of foods is essential. The most innate consumer need and expectation is for the food to provide an acceptable (e.g. a quick lunch) to grand (e.g. Belgium chocolate) sensory experience. If the food possesses several desirable attributes (i.e. low cost, nutritious, and convenient), yet does not “taste good,” the consumer will not likely purchase the food again [1]. The five major sensory properties of food materials—appearance, texture, aroma,1 taste,1 and irritation—are perceived by the primary human senses—visual (sight), tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), auditory (hearing), and chemesthesis2 (common chemical sense). Figure 1 illustrates the connection between how these six primary human senses (left column) can be used to probe the five major sensory properties of food materials (center column)—the visual system for appearance, tactile, and auditory systems for texture, the olfactory system for aroma, the gustatory system for taste, and the chemethesis system for irritation.