The electronic tongue applied to bitterness inhibition of acesulfame and saccharin
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Glenn Roy Research Fellow Pepsi-Cola Co. R&D, USA glenn.roy@pepsi.com |
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Sensory panels are the beverage industry's assessment standard for taste, aroma and texture in beverage product development. There is an observed human unwillingness to return attendance for bitter-tasting beverage taste panels. Therefore, the need exists for an alternative assessment tool correlated to human sensory perception of bitterness and its reduction. There is also a need for a high throughput screening tool capable of assessing bitterness inhibition when potential taste modifying substances cannot be legally tasted due to untested toxicology or questionable efficacy in bitterness inhibition.
The electronic tongue (an in vitro taste sensor) has been utilised to screen numerous chemical classes of literature-reported bitterness inhibitors when added to the bitter after-tasting sweeteners acesulfame (Sunette brand) or saccharin in a low pH carbonated or non-carbonated beverage model. Multivariate Statistics of the beverage model with additives provides Principal Component Analyses and Discriminant Factorial Analyses compared to reference standards of good, better, and best bitter- reduced model beverages. These analyses illustrate the quantitative inhibition effect of the bitter aftertaste. In certain cases where tasting is legally permitted, there is a defined positive sensory correlation to the device's interpretations of bitterness inhibition. We believe we have a high throughput screening assay (assessment tool) for evaluating potential new bitterness inhibitors when employing Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) to quantify specific characteristics of new lead compounds. Appropriate toxicology and regulatory procedures may permit human sensory evaluations to confirm the absolute utility of the device.
Keywords: electronic tongue, bitterness inhibition, beverages, acesulfame-K
