sensory characteristics of food - term 2 Flashcards
what are sensory characteristics
the five basic senses are hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch/ texture/mouthfeel.
We use our senses to evaluate foods sometimes even before consuming them.
they help us to determine the characteristics of food, and quality and they assist us to ensure that we consume foods that meet our needs.
what is appearance
Our sense of sight reacts to the appearance of food
Appearance is often the initial way that we assess food
The appearance of food relates to the color, size, and shape of the foods we are looking at
Can tell us if the food is safe for consumption (e.g. the chicken is pink)
what is odor
Our sense of smell reacts to the odour or aroma of food. Food that smells good can activate our appetites before even see food
EXAMPLE: the smell of fresh cookies baking in the oven.
The odour of food is a result of chemicals in food escaping into the air
The odour can be intensified when cooking food.
Can help indicate if food is spoiled (eg off milk)
what is flavor
Our sense of taste reacts to the flavour of food.
Enhanced by odour
There are five basic flavour categories which include bitter, salty, sour, sweet and umami (savoury)
Our taste buds react to the chemicals in food and this allows us to recognise the flavour we taste
Our sense of taste can decrease as we get older as our taste buds disintegrate and our bodies do not replace them.
Flavours can be enhanced by using different combinations of ingredients and pairing foods together
what is texture
Our sense of touch reacts to the texture of food
This can be both the texture of food when we pick it up and the texture of the food, we experience in the mouth known as mouthfeel
We can use touch to determine if fresh food products such as fruit and vegetables are ripe and ready to be eaten. E.g., avocados are softer when ripe
Often foods are paired together if they have textures e.g., soft pasta dishes and crunchy garlic breads
what is mouthfeel - texture
Mouthfeel is the experience of food in the mouth. The texture of food can be felt in the mouth e.g., chewy, crisp, soft etc
what is sound
Our sense of hearing reacts to the sound of foods.
This can be the sound of foods cooking e.g., the sizzling of bacon cooking in a pan
It can also be the sound of foods being consumed e.g., the slurping of soup or the crunch of chips.
