Category: MTM

Oral Tribology: Bridging the Gap Between Physical Measurements and Sensory Experience

Soft-tribology is emerging as an important field of research for quantifying the physics occurring during oral tribological processes. In a food oral processing context, recent research indicates that tribology measurements are providing insights into several texture-related sensory percepts, but obtaining quantitative empirical relationships between the two is challenging. Choosing a physiologically relevant tribological ‘system’ is paramount to the successful application of tribology as an indicator for texture perception; the choice of instrument, surfaces and model food system, as well as the role of saliva, should be carefully considered. Tribology and sensory perception are affected by multiple physico-chemical properties, and therefore integrative approaches that combine tribology with other characterisation techniques are necessary for mechanistic understanding on their inter-relationship.