Abstract
Sugar reduction in food and beverage products involves several challenges. Non-nutritive sweeteners may give unwanted off-flavors, while sugar-reduced products often lack mouthfeel. To overcome this, the addition of aroma to increase sweetness through cross-modal interactions, and the addition of hydrocolloids such as pectin to increase viscosity, have been suggested as strategies to aid sugar reduction. However, viscosity has been shown to decrease both taste and aroma intensities. An increase in viscosity may thereby affect the use of aromas as sweetness enhancers. Additionally, the effects of aromas and hydrocolloids on sweetness intensity and mouthfeel depend on the food matrix involved. The present study investigated cross-modal aroma–sweetness–viscosity interactions in two beverage matrices: water and apple nectar. The perceptual effects of vanilla aroma (0–1 mL/kg), sucrose (2.5%–7.5% w/w) and pectin (0%–0.3% w/w) were studied in both matrices. For each matrix, cross-modal interactions were analyzed with descriptive analysis using a trained sensory panel. The effect of vanilla aroma on sweetness intensity was found to be higher in apple nectar compared to in water. Furthermore, pectin affected neither taste, aroma, nor the cross-modal effects of aroma on taste in either of the matrices. These results indicate that pectin, in the studied range of concentrations, may be used to improve mouthfeel in sugar-reduced beverages, without compromising taste or aroma perception.
Highlights
Sugar reduction in food and beverages is of high relevance for individuals as well as for society, since high sugar consumption has been shown to contribute to obesity and related lifestyle diseases [1,2].the food and beverage industry is very interested in the topic, due to the possible economic gains of designing successful sugar-reduced products
We studied the interactions between sucrose, aroma and pectin in an aqueous matrix and in an apple nectar matrix, respectively
The results for the cross-modal effect of vanilla aroma on sweet taste intensity will be discussed followed by a discussion of the effects of high-ester pectin on aroma and taste intensities
Summary
The food and beverage industry is very interested in the topic, due to the possible economic gains of designing successful sugar-reduced products. Non-nutritive sweeteners have been used extensively to replace sugar, but they often possess additional taste qualities considered as off-flavors. Non-nutritive sweeteners result in perceptually different temporal profiles compared to sucrose [3]. This may negatively affect consumers’ acceptability of the products [3,4]. Instead of using non-nutritive sweeteners, it has been suggested to use cross-modal interactions as an alternative strategy to reduce the sugar content in many food and beverages [5,6,7,8]
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