Investigating the relationship between geometric features of voids and textures in aerated foods

Abstract

Air bubbles can affect the texture of various food products. For example, the number, radii, and radii variance of air bubbles can change the firmness and elasticity of aerated food products. However, the contribution of such geometric features to food texture has not been investigated thoroughly. If the relationship between air bubbles and food texture is clarified, the internal structure of food items can be designed based on its texture. Thus, in this study, we developed an algorithm to analyze the relationship between the geometric features of air bubbles and food textures and to determine the food’s internal structure giving an intended texture. First, the bubbles’ geometric features are analyzed using X-ray CT scan. Second, the textures are quantified using the Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS). Finally, the relationship between the geometric features of bubbles and the food texture is calculated via regression analysis. An experiment was performed according to the above procedure, in which aerated chocolates were adopted as specimens because their relatively high densities yield high quality CT datasets. The experimental results demonstrated that the crumbly texture has a high correlation with the number, radii, and radii variance of air bubbles, and the gooey texture exhibited strong correlation with the number of air bubbles, the radii of air bubbles, and sugar content. For these two texture geometry relationships, we computed geometric models of aerated chocolates expected to realize these two textures.

Keywords

• air bubbles
• x-ray computed tomography (ct)
• temporal dominance of sensations (tds)
• regression analysis