12-2 |
The effectiveness of palate cleansers |
E. A. JOHNSON, Sensory and Guidance Research, General Mills, Inc., 9000 Plymouth Ave. N., Golden Valley, MN 55427 and Z. M. Vickers, Department of Food Science, University of Minnesota, 1334 Eckles Ave., Saint Paul, MN 55108. Palate cleansers are commonly employed in sensory evaluation studies to cleanse the palates of subjects before and in between samples. Their purpose is to rid the oral environment of substances that would interfere with product evaluations due to carryover or adaptation. Little published literature regarding the effectiveness of palate cleansers and rinsing strategies commonly used in sensory evaluation exists. The effectiveness of palate cleansers can be measured by their ability to minimize adaptation or carryover effects, and by their ability to enhance discrimination. The objective of this study was to compare the effectiveness of seven interstimulus rinsing strategies for discriminating bitterness in cream cheese. Our subjects used: no rinse, water, sparkling water, carrots, crackers, plain cream cheese, and rinsing six times with water. Twenty judges, screened for their ability to rank bitterness of caffeine, attended seven sessions during the study - one for each palate cleanser. They rated the bitterness intensity of five cream cheese samples with different levels of added caffeine (0%, 0.03%, 0.055%, 0.07%, 0.09%). We used caffeine because it is typical of bitter compounds that have delayed onset and lingering aftertastes, and cream cheese because it tends to leave a fatty coating in the mouth. We used ANOVA F-values for caffeine level to measure discrimination. We used the increases or decreases in bitterness over taste position to measure carryover or adaptation effects. All interstimulus rinsing strategies and palate cleansers were equally effective. None were more effective than not rinsing. Panelists rated samples as less bitter when sparkling water was used as the palate cleanser. Panelist performance is likely not affected by the choice of palate cleanser.
Session 12, Sensory Evaluation: Sensory techniques - Descriptive analysis
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