Food & Function Blog

Creaminess is a popular sensory feature of many fat-containing foods, particularly dairy foods such as ice creams, yoghurts and sauces and has an important influence on consumers’ preferences.  A consumer has no difficulty distinguishing a creamy food from a non-creamy one; however, the exact meaning of the sensory term is unclear despite wide study.  There is an increasing consumer demand for healthier fat-reduced food and although there are many different types of fat replacers which mimic some aspects of fat there is no replacer that can really mimic creaminess due to the lack of understanding of the sensory feature. 

Two main theories have emerged to explain creaminess, one that it is a chemical process based on molecule detection by taste buds, the other that it is a physical process based on sensing by mechanoreceptors and nerve endings in the mouth.  Although the two theories are contradictory, both have experimental evidence to support them.

The aim of this investigation by Jianshe Chen and Louise Eaton from the University of Leeds, UK, was to determine the main sensory stimuli and sensation mechanisms of food creaminess. The sensory creaminess of a set of four viscosity-matched fluid foods (single cream, evaporated milk, corn starch solution, and corn starch solution containing long chain free fatty acids) was tested by a panel of 16 assessors via controlled sensation mechanisms of smell only, taste only, taste and tactile and integrated multimodal.  The results showed that assessors were able to detect creaminess among fat-containing and non-fat-containing samples using smell, taste, tactile and multimodal inputs. As the number of sensory cues is increased, the assessor’s capability in distinguishing food creaminess also increases. Based on these findings, one may conclude that:

• Sensation and perception of creaminess is a complicated sensory experience, involving olfactory, gustatory, tactile, as well as visual mechanisms. The appearance of a product and its flavour make important contributions in the perception of food creaminess
• Food creaminess is not a primary sensory property detected only via either chemical or physical mechanisms, but is an integrated sensory feature derived from a number of primary sensory factors (smell, taste, tactile, visual, etc.)
• long chain fatty acids play no significant role in the perception of food creaminess.

Interested in knowing more? Read the full article for free until 28^th September

Multimodal mechanisms of food creaminess sensation, Jianshe Chen and Louise Eaton, Food Funct., 2012, Advance Article

You may also be interested in this recently published article, free till the end of September, which features on the cover of the current issue of Food & Function, a themed issue on cocoa, coffee and tea.

Impact of crema on the aroma release and the in-mouth sensory perception of espresso coffee, D. Barron, N. Pineau, W. Matthey-Doret, S. Ali, J. Sudre, J. C. Germain, E. Kolodziejczyk, P. Pollien, D. Labbe, C. Jarisch, V. Dugas, C. Hartmann and B. Folmer, Food Funct., 2012, 3, 923-930

You can keep up to date with the latest developments from Food & Function by signing up for free table of contents alerts and monthly e-newsletters.

Lipid digestion has been widely studied because of its impact on human health and the food and pharmaceutical industries. However, ethical issues make in vivo human studies difficult, therefore, numerous in vitro digestion models have been developed which mimic the conditions in the gastro-intestinal tract (GIT). Dairy calcium has been shown to affect fat lipolysis and can reduce body weight and LDL cholesterols. However, the mechanism by which calcium lowers the blood cholesterol remains unclear.

In this work, Slavka Tcholakova and co-workers have developed a simple in vitro model for triglyceride (TG) lipolysis which mimics closely the conditions in the human stomach and small intestine. In this new model the pH profile in the small intestine is closely matched to real conditions using a bicarbonate buffer and the experimental procedure does not include complex equipment. In their study the proposed in vitro model was used to assess the effects of Ca2+, pH, and bicarbonate on the degree of TG lipolysis and on the solubilization of the lipolysis products and cholesterol in the aqueous phase. The model is also appropriate for studying other phenomena making it a versatile tool for studying the lipid-related phenomena occurring in the gastrointestinal tract.

Read the article for free until 18th September by clicking the link below:

In vitrostudy of triglyceride lipolysis and phase distribution of the reaction products and cholesterol: effects of calcium and bicarbonate, Zahari Vinarov, Liliya Petrova, Slavka Tcholakova, Nikolai Denkov Denkov, Simeon D. Stoyanov and Alex Lipse, Food Funct., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2fo30085k

You may also be interested in this review article, also free to access:

Review of in vitro digestion models for rapid screening of emulsion-based systems, David Julian McClements and Yan Li, Food Funct., 2010, 1, 32-59

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Carotenoids, highly pigmented compounds found in various foods such as carrots, tomatoes and apricots, have received a lot of attention recently due to their natural antioxidant properties. Because of their highly conjugated polyene structures these compounds act as singlet oxygen quenchers and radical scavengers and play an important role in the prevention of oxidative stress, which in turn prohibits the pathogenesis of various diseases. However, unlike phenolic antioxidants, carotenoids do not have a reactive hydrogen to donate to a radical, which makes it difficult for conventional probes to assess the radical scavenging capacity of these compounds. Therefore a deeper understanding of the radical scavenging mechanism is required.

In this work, scientists from Osaka, Japan, have investigated the radical scavenging capacity of commercial tomato juice and two major carotenoids (b-carotene and lycopene). By taking into account the strong light absorption of carotenoids in the visible spectrum the authors developed a technique using the bleaching of carotenoids by free radicals in the presence of a reference antioxidant, a-tocopherol. Their results show that the free-radical scavenging activity of carotenoids is aproximately a tenth of a-tocopherol in model systems and commercial tomato juice.

Read the full article for free until 11th September by clicking the link below:

Capacity of peroxyl radical scavenging and inhibition of lipid peroxidation by b-carotene, lycopene, and commercial tomato juice, Mizuki Takashima, Mototada Shichiri, Yoshihisa Hagihara, Yasukazu Yoshida and Etsuo Niki, Food Funct., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2FO30119A.

You may also be interested in the following article published in Food & Function earlier this year:

Xanthones as antioxidants: A theoretical study on the thermodynamics and kinetics of the single electron transfer mechanism, Ana Martínez, Elizabeth Hernández-Marin and Annia Galano, Food Funct., 2012, 3, 442-450

You can keep up to date with the latest developments from Food & Function by signing up for free table of contents alerts and monthly e-newsletters.

In this study the effect of a major quercetin metabolite on gene expression of macrophages was investigated to elucidate the molecular mechanism behind the beneficial effects of flavonoids on cardiovascular disease. Macrophages (white blood cells within tissues), due to their recently discovered plasticity, are thought to play a crucial role in the development of atherosclerosis and quercetin has been implicated in inflammation modulation in humans through mechanisms involving macrophages. 

In this work classical (M1) and alternative (M2a) macrophages were exposed to quercetin-3-O-glucuronide (Q3GA – the main human metabolite of the flavonoid quercetin) and gene expression was monitored after an incubation period. Q3GA was able to reduce the transcription of genes from M2a macrophages involved in inflammation showing that Q3GA positively influences inflammation-related gene expression in macrophages at low concentration. Also, as quercetin is a flavonoid, the observations reported in this work could explain the previously observed anti-atherogenic effects of diets rich in flavonoids.

To read the article for free until 4th September, please click the link below:

Quercetin-3-O-glucuronide affects the gene expression profile of M1 and M2a human macrophages exhibiting antiinflammatory effects, Eleonora Derlindati, Margherita Dall’Asta, Diego Ardigo, Furio Brighenti, Ivana Zavaroni, Alan Crozier and Daniele Del Rio, Food Funct., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2fo30127j

You may also be interested in this review which is also FREE to access:

Anti-inflammatory activity of natural dietary flavonoids, Min-Hsiung Pan, Ching-Shu Lai and Chi-Tang Ho, Food Funct., 2010,1, 15-31

You can keep up to date with the latest developments from Food & Function by signing up for free table of contents alerts and monthly e-newsletters.