Flavors consumer perception

Color is one of the most important attributes of foodstuffs and is associated with freshness and quality. Color is also associated with expectation of flavor and taste, changing consumer perceptions. The basic use of colorants is to improve natural colors destroyed during storage or processing, to reinforce the colors already present in the food in order to obtain the best food appearance, and to ensure color uniformity. 

However, to date, these studies have not fully taken into account the subtle variability in wine aromas that can occur within a variety as a function of processing conditions, vintage year, geographical location, climate, and viticultural practices. Furthermore, these studies cannot predict consumer perception or preferences of the wines on the basis of chemical or sensory properties. Using examples from recent studies, this chapter explores some of the factors that are limiting our ability to correlate analytical and sensory information. We also discuss some approaches being used to provide the missing links needed to quantify accurately and to describe complex food flavors. 

Food colorants play an important role in quality perception. Color is often the first notable characteristic of a food and it influences the expectations of consumers buying the product and also influences food handlers who make quality-related decisions, for example, during visual inspections." More specifically, color predetermines our expectations and perceptions of flavor and taste. " Color is interrelated with flavor intensity (detection threshold), with sweetness and salinity sensations, and also with our susceptibilities to and preferences for products. For example, consumers perceived a strongly red-colored strawberry-flavored drink to be sweeter than a less colored version, and yellow was associated with lemon and pink with grapefruit, but by reversing the colors, flavor perception changed." If food color is not appealing, consumers will not enjoy the flavor and texture of the food. ... 

Consumer acceptance of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables is influenced by product appearance, flavor, aroma, and textural properties. Color is a key component that influences a consumer s initial perception of fruit and vegetable quality. Lycopene is the principal carotene in tomato fruit that imparts color. Analytical and sensory... 

Flavor perception. See Perception of flavor Flavor quality importance to consumer, 79 in raspberries, s proaches to mapping loci, 109-115... 

FLAVORS AND ESSENCES. Normal, healthy people have keen senses of taste and odor, as well as of some of the collateral senses that interact with and contribute to the overall sensations of taste and odor. Much progress has been made over the last few decades in gaining an improved understanding of the physiology and chemistry of these perceptions, but research in the field is mainly of a qualitative and statistical nature. Numerous theories have been developed, but no single theory has been universally accepted. Flavor and essence scientists face tremendous challenges in their attempts to convert an art that dates back centuries into a body of science that can illuminate producers and consumers alike in terms of their odor and taste preferences and dislikes. 

ORGANOLEPTIC. A term widely used to describe consumer testing procedures for food products, perfumes, wines, and the like in which samples of various products, flavors, etc. are submitted to groups or panels. Such tests are a valuable aid in determining the acceptance of tlie products and thns may be viewed as a marketing technique, They also serve psychological purposes and are an important means of e valuating the subjective aspects of taste, odor, color, and related factors, The physical and chemical characteristics of foods are stimuli for the eye, ear, skin, nose, and mouth, whose receptors initiate impulses that travel to the brain, where perception occurs. 

Flavor perception results from interactions between a consumer and stimulants in a food. For the aroma part of flavor, the stimulants are volatiles that bind to receptor proteins found on the olfactory epithelium. These stimulants can reach the receptors by two routes, orthonasal or retronasal. The retronasal route is used when odorants are drawn from the mouth during eating through the nasal pharynx to produce aroma. 

Apart from the case reported above, this defect usually affects wine in the barrel. The perception threshold for TeCA is around 15 ng/L for experts and 35 ng/L for experienced consumers. The flavor defect is described as powdery, dry and musty. 

This chapter gives an overview of new trends and developments in flavor chemistry. One Important development was made possible by advances in analytical methodology, that is, the Identification of numerous compounds with known flavor characteristics. As more and more compounds are correlated with characteristic flavors, there is a trend to study flavor precursors and to explain how flavor is developed and released. Many of the newest developments in flavor chemistry are in the area of flavor production from plant and animal sources this trend has come about because of the public s fear of the words "chemical" and "synthetic". In this chapter, words such as these are discussed in terms of the public s perception of them versus a chemist s viewpoint. Another new trend is to understand the chemical reactions involved in the processing and storage of foods in order to bring foods to consumers at optimum acceptability. 

The color of citric beverages, in particular, is related to the consumer s perception of flavor, sweetness, and other characteristics in relation to the quality of these products (Tepper, 1993 Cortes, Esteve, and Frigola,... 

Our food supply contains naturally occurring chemicals and frequently synthetic chemical compounds ( 1 5). There is no chemical distinction between a flavor compound synthesized by nature and the same compound prepared in the laboratory. Yet the perception that anything natural is "good for you and that which is synthetic is harmful, is prevalent among consumers. 

The flavor of food is the most important sensory attribnte affecting the acceptance and preference of consumers. Standards organizations in many countries define flavor as a total impression of taste, odor, tactile, kinesthetic, temperature, and pain sensations perceived through tasting [1]. It is widely accepted that flavor includes the aromatics, such as olfactory perceptions caused by volatile substances the tastes, such as gustatory perceptions (salty, sweet, sour, and bitter) caused by soluble... 

Food products, whether fresh or processed, must have desirable flavors that are pleasant to the palate of the consumer. Flavorings are often added to foods, to create a totally new taste, to enhance or increase the perception of flavors already present, to replace unavailable flavors, to mask less desirable flavors that are naturally present in some processed foods, or, to supplement flavors already present and that had disappeared as a result of food processing [4]. 

Production of compounds which help in development of characteristic aromas of many fmits such as apple, banana and strawberries, and so on can be adversely affected by MAP. The high CO and low may affect the oxidative processes and ethylene perception and suppress aroma production. However, most produce recover from moderate low suppression of volatile aroma production and eventually develop characteristic flavors. Still the aroma of the commodity, when it is just taken out of the low Oj packages may be inferior to the fresh commodity, which can affect consumer appeal (Beaudry, 2000). 

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