Food has specific nutritional properties. Some of these properties can be captured through our senses. Thus, the color, taste, smell or texture of a substance provides relevant information about its characteristics as a food. These types of properties are known as organoleptic.
The information that we perceive from food through the senses allows us to know if something is edible or if it is in good condition.
The color
The perception of the color of food is an indicator of its chemical composition and its state. The red color communicates that a food has a high content of lycopene, a substance that we can find in tomatoes, watermelons or strawberries. Orange and yellow indicate that a food has a high beta-carotene content, such as orange, carrot or peach. Green is an indicator of chlorophyll, such as broccoli, lettuce, or spinach.
Flavor
The taste of a food comes from the chemical reactions of our sense of taste located on the tongue, although the sense of smell also participates in the taste. The taste sensation causes physiological defense reactions in the body. There are four different flavors: sweet, salty, bitter and sour. Each of them is detected in a specific part of the language.
The smell
The odor of food is produced by a complex mixture of gases, vapors and dust. Thus, the composition of the mixture determines the smell perceived by the recipient. It should be noted that our nose is capable of perceiving more than 10,000 different aromas. There are all kinds of aromas: fragrant, burning, sulphurous, sweet, ethereal, rancid, oily or metallic.
The texture
Each variety of food has a certain elasticity and consistency. Currently these attributes can be measured through a texturometer. With this type of measurement it is possible to establish the differences between two similar foods, for example between a hard cheese and a semi-hard cheese.
Sensory analysis of wine
In the analysis of a wine, several senses are used in different phases of analysis. In the visual phase it is observed what type of tonality each wine has. In the olfactory phase, the characteristic aroma of each grape variety and its level of fermentation can be perceived. In the taste phase, the aim is to capture its degree of acidity or bitterness.
Photos: Fotolia - M.studio - Rido
