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Review: the Use of Electromyography on Food Texture Assessment

Universitat de Valencia, Facultad de Psicología. Av. Blasco Ibánñez 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain gonzalrb{at}uv.es

I. Montoya

Universitat de Valencia, Facultad de Psicología. Av. Blasco Ibánñez 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain

J. Cárcel

Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Departamento de Tecnología de Alimentos, Camino de Vera s/n, 46071 Valencia, Spain

Sensory evaluation (SE) involves evoking, measuring and interpreting human responses to the properties of foods. Among these properties texture is an important one for food acceptability. Texture is mainly perceived through mastication, a process that changes food characteristics throughout time by comminuting and salivation. Electromyography (EMG) has emerged as a new tool in sensory evaluation mainly for assessing texture characteristics. Thus, it is interesting to analyze the knowledge so far generated and the procedures employed. Bipolar surface electrodes are placed on the four main masticatory muscles (masseter right-left and temporalis right-left) and their electric activity recorded during mastication. The signals need to be amplified and filtered, and afterwards their acquisition by a computer allows conditioning and analysis. The output is a series of bursts corresponding to the chews during mastication. EMG parameters include the area under the curve (linked to masticatory work) and voltage (linked to the force exerted) at different moments of the process. Many other parameters are derived from the recording and related to food texture characteristics. EMG allows the study of changes throughout the masticatory process, these changes in EMG parameters permit a better assessment of sensory characteristics than mechanical measurements. Nevertheless, close-fitting correlations have been found between sensorymechanical-EMG measurements. In the literature, texture assessment by using EMG includes many products like carrots, biscuits, cooked meat, cooked rice, cheese, etc., as well as different texture characteristics like tenderness, hardness, crunchiness, juiciness, among others. Nowadays, texture studies involving EMG are mainly linked to describing changes or differences in the signals, good descriptors of perceived differences. Nevertheless for quantifying purposes, in order to allow comparisons among authors, a first step should be undertaken to standardize EMG parameters definition and procedures used in SE.

Key Words: electromyography • texture • sensory analysis

Food Science and Technology International, Vol. 7, No. 6, 461-471 (2001)
DOI: 10.1106/NRHT-L39D-HY1Y-8RGB


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