Food Flavor

Abstract

In closing the world's protein gap, flavor con trol is a vital factor. Food primarily must be nu tritious to sustain life, but unless the flavor is acceptable to the human palate, it may not be eaten. Today, new ways are being found to up grade natural foods lacking flavor and to add flavor in new man-made meat substitutes having a high nutritive content. Flavor chemistry is the newest branch of food chemistry in the United States. Gas chrom atograph y, whereby food flavor volatiles can be separated into their manifold chemical com ponents, is being perfected. Other physico chemical techniques are also being used to identify these chemicals, but with the help of the human nose and brain which are more sen sitive than mechanical devices, New and improved synthetic fruit flavors have already been developed as there are not enough natural fruits grown to meet the demand for these flavors in foods. Similarly, beef extract is being replaced with flavor potentiators: MSG (monosodium glutamate); HVP (hydrolyzed plant proteins); and the flavor nucleotides-5' IMP (inosine 5' monophosphate) that occurs in meat and fish muscle, and 5' GMP (guanosine 5' monophosphate), which is produced biochem ically from yeast and yeast derivatives. Progress has been made with meat substitutes. Natural flavorings derived from beef, chicken and ham have been combined with soy, yeast or algae protein to make simulated meats.