Physiological routes explaining human differences in liking for margarines, butter, melanges, and other water in oil emulsions
Résumé
Fat perception and liking is subject of growing interest from both the industries and the scientific community. Despite numerous studies relating consumer liking with product formulation, differences in consumer perception need to be explored in more details. One hypothesis is that individual oral physiology could better explain differences in liking than only composition and socio-economic data. The aim of this review is to explore the different physiological parameters which could be involved in fat liking and fat perception with a particular focus on spreads and to analyse the links already evidenced in the literature between food composition and structure, physiological behaviour in function of physiological parameters and their impact on fat perception and liking. The first part of the review is focused on the different aspects of oral physiology and perception. We will first present a general focus on food oral processing including masticatory behaviour, saliva composition and oral tribology. As fat perception is considered as a multimodal sensation, which involves smell, taste and texture perception, this review will then present the main aspects of multisensory perception, from olfactory then gustatory system to central processing followed by a focus on the different modalities of fat perception and the multimodal interactions between fat perception and other modalities. The second part of the review is focused on spreads and related products, in the aim to better understand the links between oral physiology and consumer liking for fat products. The third part will present some propositions taking into account the existing knowledge and the missing information based on the analysis of the literature and the studies conducted in Dijon (INRA-CSGA).