The effect of food additives on sensory value of food

Food additives preserve the freshness and appeal of food between the times it is manufactured and when it finally reaches the market. Additives may also improve nutritional value of foods and improve their taste, texture, consistency or color.

Color, odor, taste and consistency or texture, which are important for the sensory value of food, may decreases during processing and storage. Such decreases can be corrected or readjusted by additives such as pigment aroma compounds or flavor enhancers.

When the food is to be stored for a prolonged period, use of additives and preservatives is essential in order to maintain its quality and flavor. Development of “off flavor” for instance, derived from fat or oil oxidation, can be suppressed by antioxidants. Food texture can be stabilized by adding minerals or polysaccharides, and by many other means.

A flavour additive is a single chemical or blend of chemicals of natural or synthetic origin that provides all or part of the flavour impact of a particular food. These chemicals are added in order to replace flavour lost in processing and to develop new products. Flavourings are the largest group of food additives, with more than 1,200 compounds available for commercial use.

Some artificial colors are also added to the foods to give them an appealing look. These coloring substances are erythrosine (red), cantaxanthin (orange), amaranth (Azoic red), tartrazine (Azoic yellow) and annatto bixine (yellow orange). Colorants are often necessary to produce a uniform product from raw materials that vary in colour intensity. Colorants used as food additives are classified as natural or synthetic.

Additives and preservatives maintain the quality and consistency of the foods. They also maintain palatability and wholesomeness of the food, improve or maintain its nutritional value, control appropriate pH, provide leavening and color, and enhance its flavor.
The effect of food additives on sensory value of food

The influence of color on food acceptance

In spite of the numerous ways by which the appearance attributes of food affect consumer acceptance, the majority of research on the role of appearance in food acceptance has focused on the influence of color.

Color is an important property of foods that adds to enjoyment of eating. Of the three sensory properties of foods; food scientists tell that color is more important than flavor and texture in the initial food selection process.

On study showed that when jellies were colored in an atypical manner, the fruit flavors were incorrectly identified.  It appears that color references for foods are the result of experience, culture and conditioning.

In addition, the colors of food contribute significantly to people to enjoy their meals. For this reason it is desirable to maintain as much of the natural color of fresh and processed foods as possible.

The food processer makes every effort to retain good color characteristics of his/her food products because he or she understands the importance of this property in promoting his/her sales.

Color variations in foods throughout the seasons and the effect of food processing and storage often require that manufacturers add color to certain foods to meet consumer expectations. The general principles for the application of colors to products are described with the overall aim of matching what the consumer expects from the particular food product.

Account must be taken of the effects of pH and processing, especially browning from the Maillard reaction and loss of initial color.
The influence of color on food acceptance

Color as a factor on food acceptance

The color of natural foods has evolved first through optimization of plant life to prevailing geographical, geographical and climatologically conditions and second, through co-evolution with insect and animal visual characteristics.

Color plays a key role in establishing consumer acceptability of food. Of the three sensory properties of foods; food scientists tell that color is more important than flavor and texture in the initial food selection process.

In addition, the colors of food contribute significantly to people to enjoy their meals. For this reason it is desirable to maintain as much of the natural color of fresh and processed foods as possible.

However, inappropriately colored foods have a negative effect on acceptance. This is true for foods that have colors normally associative with spoilage (brown meat, green bread, black tomatoes) as well as for impropriate colors not associated with spoilage (blue steak, red peanut butter etc).

Color is a characteristic of a particular food material and is vital to its identification and judgment of quality. The food processer makes every effort to retain good color characteristics of his/her food products because he or she understands the importance of this property in promoting his/her sales.
Color as a factor on food acceptance

Sensory evaluation

Measuring the sensory properties and determining the importance of these properties as a basis for predicting acceptance by the consumer represent major accomplishments for sensory evaluation.

Sensory evaluation has been defined as a scientific method used to evoke, measure, analyze and interpret those responses to products as perceived through the senses of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing.

It can be divided into two categories of testing: objective and subjective. In objective testing, the sensory attributes of a product are evaluated by a selected or trained panel.

The attributes of a food item are typically perceived in the following order:
*Appearance
*Odor/aroma/fragrance
*Consistency and texture
*Flavor (aromatics, chemical feelings, taste)

Sensory evaluation comprises a set of techniques for accurate measurement of human responses to foods and minimizes the potentially biasing effects of brand identity and other information influences on consumer perception.

The major components of sensory evaluation are:
*The human sense organs’
*Methods of sensory evaluation
*The laboratory
*Data analysis and interpretation
Sensory evaluation

Sensory Testing

Sensory Testing
Sensory testing utilizes one or more of the five senses to evaluate foods.

Taste panels, comprising groups of people, taste specific food samples under controlled conditions and evaluate them in different ways depending on the particular sensory test being conducted.

This is the only type of testing that can measure consumer preference and acceptability.

When it comes to public opinion of a product, there is no substitute for tasting by individual consumers.

In addition to a taste –panel evaluation, objective tests can be established that correlate with sensory testing, which give an indication of consumer acceptability, but this may not always be sufficient.

In the development of new foods or when changing an existing product, it is necessary to determine consumer acceptance directly and objective testing is not sufficient, even though it may be a reliable, objective indication of food quality.

Sensory methods may be used to determine:
*Whether foods differ in taste, odor, juiciness, tenderness, texture and so on.
*To what extend food differ
*To ascertain consumer preferences and to determine whether a certain food is acceptable to a specific consumer group.

Three types of sensory testing are commonly used, each with different goal. Discrimination or difference tests are design to determine whether there is a difference between products, descriptive tests determine the extent of difference in specific sensory characteristics and affective or acceptance/preference tests determine how well the products are liked or which products are preferred.

There are important differences between these types of tests. It is important to select the appropriate type of test so that the results obtained are able to answer the question being asked about the products and are useful to the manufacturer or product developer.

The appropriate tests must be used under suitable conditions in order for results to be interpreted correctly.

All testing must be carried out under controlled conditions, with controlled lighting, sound (no noise), and temperature to minimize distractions and other adverse psychological factors.
Sensory Testing

Taste and smell

Taste and smell
Taste and smell, described as our two chemical senses, work together in our perception of the flavor of food.

The process is extremely complex and not completely understood. Neither the tongue nor the nose alone is sufficient to experience flavor; we must have the combination of taste and aroma, as the brain registers signals from the taste buds and mouth and from the olfactory sensory cells at the roof of the nasal passage.

In addition, the sense of touch is inextricably involved in our experience, as we react to the “mouth-feel” of food, determined by its texture and c0nsistency.

The temperature of food, as well as the presence of certain chemicals which we describes as “hot” (as in chilies) or “cool” (as in mints) are also factors.

Piquant foods actually cause a degree of pain, in a way that offends some eaters but excites and pleases others. The look of food before we eat is important, as are the sounds we hear – crunchy, squeaky, slurpy, fizzy, and so on – as we chew and swallow.

And finally a feeling of satisfaction, satiety, or even bloatedness, or the discovery that “it tastes like more,” all contribute to the profound experience of savoring our food.

Moreover, these sensations are modified by our mood at the moment, our state of health, our expectations, nostalgia and the taboos and aversions.

Our sense of smell, while perhaps dull in comparison to most other mammals’, is nonetheless extremely subtle, and we can discriminate among thousands of different scents.

In contrast, the gustatory sense - the perceptions communicated by the taste buds – is usually regarded as rather crude, being limited to just four basic tastes: sweet, sour (or acid), bitter and salty.

This theory is by no means universally accepted, however, some physiologists and some culinary cultures suggest that there are one or more additional basic tastes, variously describe as earthy, metallic, stringent, alkaline (soapy), or spicy (pungent).

It is difficult to specify precisely what is meant by these terms, and some of them may overlap. Our problem is identifying the basic tastes may reflect a physiological fact: Although the question of how many basic tastes there are goes back at least to Aristotle, no one has yet demonstrated that such a thing as a basic taste actually exists.
Taste and smell

Food Additive in General

Food Additive in General
A food additive is a substance (or a mixture of substance) which is added to food and is involved in its production, processing, packaging and/or storage without being a major ingredient.

Additives or their degradation products generally remain in food, but in some case they may be removed during processing.

The following examples illustrate and support the use of additives to enhance the:

Nutritive Value of food
Additive such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids and amino acids derivatives are utilized to increase the nutritive value of food. A particular diet may also require the use of thickening agents, emulsifiers, sweeteners, etc.

Sensory Value of Food
Color, odor, taste and consistency or texture, which are important for the sensory value of food, may decreases during processing and storage. Such decreases can be corrected or readjusted by additives such as pigment aroma compounds or flavor enhancers.

Development of “off flavor” for instance, derived from fat or oil oxidation, can be suppressed by antioxidants. Food texture can be stabilized by adding minerals or polysaccharides, and by many other means.

Shelf Life of Food
The current forms of food production and distribution, as well as the trend towards convenient foods, have increased the demand for longer shelf life. Furthermore, the world food supply situation requires preservation by avoiding deterioration as much as possible.

The extension of shelf life involves protection against microbial spoilage, for example, by using anti-microbial additives and by using active agents which suppress and retard undesired chemical and physical changes in food.

The latter is achieved by stabilization of pH using buffering additives or stabilization of texture with thickening or gelling agents which are polysaccharides.

It is implicitly understood that food additives and their degradation products should be non toxic at their recommend levels of use. This applies equally to acute and to chronic toxicity, particularly the potential carcinogenic, teratogenic (causing a malformed fetus) and mutagenic (causing a malformed fetus) and mutagenic effects.

It is generally recognized that additives are applied only when required for then nutritive or sensory value of food, or for its processing or handling.
Food Additive in General