(Press-News.org) Dark chocolate lovers can handle a wider range of bitter tastes before rejection compared to milk chocolate fans, according to Penn State food scientists.
In a test of bitterness rejection levels in chocolate, people who prefer milk chocolate quickly detected -- and disliked -- milk chocolate with a bitter substance added to the candy, according to Meriel Harwood, a graduate student in food science. Dark chocolate fans had significantly higher tolerance to the added bitterness than people who like milk chocolate.
"In some cases, you may be able to detect a change in the taste of your food, but that might not necessarily lead to disliking the product," said Harwood. "However, almost immediately, people who preferred milk chocolate indicated they tasted something different and they didn't like it."
The researchers, who report their findings in the online version of the Journal of Food Science, divided a group of 85 participants into two groups based on their self-identified preferences in chocolate. A total of 43 people told researchers they preferred milk chocolate, and 42 people said they preferred dark chocolate.
Participants tried a series of pairs of dime-sized chocolate samples. In each pair, one sample contained sucrose octaacetate -- SOA -- a bitter-tasting substance, and the other did not. In each successive pair, the next samples contained increasing amounts of SOA.
The milk chocolate group quickly rejected the samples with SOA, while the dark chocolate group continued to like the candy, Harwood said. The dark chocolate group had a rejection threshold more than 2.5 times the rejection threshold level of those who prefer milk chocolate.
Harwood, who worked with Greg Ziegler, professor of food science, and John Hayes, assistant professor of food science and director of the sensory evaluation center, said that tests of rejection thresholds in food may be a simpler and more direct way to test food acceptability rather than measuring when the consumer can taste something different -- detection thresholds. The detection threshold test is one of the most common taste tests used in sensory science and is usually paired with affective -- or, consumer -- testing to determine preferences.
People do not always dislike a food because they detect something different, even if that difference may be considered a defect or undesirable attribute, according to Harwood.
"There may be a disconnect between preferences and the ability to detect tastes, like bitterness," said Harwood. "In other words, using detection threshold tests may not predict consumer acceptability."
Previous studies on cork taint in wine have shown that even though wine drinkers tasted the cork taint, they did not necessarily find the wine objectionable.
"We bring a bunch of cultural and emotional baggage with us when we eat," said Harwood. "What you grow up with, what you are used to, what you know, for example, can all influence your preferences."
Harwood said rejection threshold tests may lead to cost-savings for the food industry.
Rather than disposing products that are thought to be undesirable and wasting costly materials, researchers could use rejection thresholds to find out whether consumers will object to the taste of a product. Food manufacturers may also be able to use alternative ingredients, such as sugar or salt replacements, if they can first identify a rejection threshold level for those ingredients in products. This could give product developers more versatility when they create recipes.
### END
Bitter tastes quickly turn milk chocolate fans sour
2012-08-30
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Shedding new light on one of diabetes' most dangerous complications
2012-08-30
VIDEO:
This movie compares the blood flow dynamics in a cross-section of the foot between a healthy individual and a diabetic patient with PAD. Differences are clearly visible in both the...
Click here for more information.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 30, 2012—For many diabetics, monitoring their condition involves much more than adhering to a routine of glucose sensing and insulin injections. It also entails carefully monitoring the ongoing toll this disease takes on their body.
An ...
Increased sediment and nutrients delivered to bay as Susquehanna reservoirs near sediment capacity
2012-08-30
Reservoirs near the mouth of the Susquehanna River just above Chesapeake Bay are nearly at capacity in their ability to trap sediment. As a result, large storms are already delivering increasingly more suspended sediment and nutrients to the Bay, which may negatively impact restoration efforts.
Too many nutrients rob the Bay of oxygen needed for fish and, along with sediment, cloud the waters, disturbing the habitat of underwater plants crucial for aquatic life and waterfowl.
"The upstream reservoirs have served previously to help reduce nutrient pollutant loads to ...
Kidney stenting lowers blood pressure in patients with severe hypertension
2012-08-30
Patients with uncontrolled renovascular hypertension saw a significant improvement in their blood pressure with renal artery stent deployment. The multicenter HERCULES trial, evaluating the safety and effectiveness of the RX Herculink Elite Stent, found that patients with higher blood pressure levels at baseline had the most dramatic reduction in blood pressure following intervention. Trial details appear in Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI).
Narrowing ...
Water pipe smoking has the same respiratory effects as smoking cigarettes
2012-08-30
A new study published in the journal Respirology reveals that water pipe smoking, such as hookah or bong smoking, affects lung function and respiratory symptoms as much as cigarette smoking.
Most users of water pipes and many physicians believe that smoking through a water pipe filters out the toxic components of tobacco and is considerably less harmful than smoking cigarettes.
Led by Mohammad Hossein Boskabady, MD, PhD, of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, researchers set out to compare lung function and respiratory symptoms among water pipe smokers, deep or ...
Immunodeficient patients with secondary lung disease benefit from combined chemotherapy
2012-08-30
A team of researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin Research Institute defined a new treatment for a potentially fatal lung disease in patients with a primary immunodeficiency known as common variable immunodeficiency (CVID).The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Immunology.
Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is the most common primary immunodeficiency that requires regular treatment with medication, specifically immunoglobulin (antibodies) replacement therapy. With immunoglobulin therapy, deaths from infection ...
A model for development
2012-08-30
PASADENA, Calif.—As an animal develops from an embryo, its cells take diverse paths, eventually forming different body parts -- muscles, bones, heart. In order for each cell to know what to do during development, it follows a genetic blueprint, which consists of complex webs of interacting genes called gene regulatory networks.
Biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have spent the last decade or so detailing how these gene networks control development in sea-urchin embryos. Now, for the first time, they have built a computational model of one ...
Does wisdom really come with age? It depends on the culture
2012-08-30
"Wisdom comes with winters," Oscar Wilde once said. And it's certainly comforting to think that aging benefits the mind, if not the body. But do we really get wiser as time passes?
There are many way to define what exactly wisdom is, but previous literature suggests that having wisdom means that you are also good at resolving conflict. But conflict is not handled the same way across cultures. Americans have been shown to emphasize individuality and solve conflict in a direct manner, such as by using direct persuasion. In contrast, the Japanese place a greater emphasis ...
Viruses could be the key to healthy corals
2012-08-30
Corals are an invaluable part of the marine ecosystem, fostering biodiversity and protecting coastlines. But they're also increasingly endangered. Pathogenic bacteria, along with pollution and harmful fishing practices, are one of the biggest threats to the world's coral populations today.
One of the solutions to the crisis may lie in human medicine. Prof. Eugene Rosenberg of Tel Aviv University's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, working in collaboration with Dr. Ilil Atad of his own laboratory and Prof. Yossi Loya of TAU's Department of Zoology, ...
No-till farming helps capture snow and soil water
2012-08-30
A smooth blanket of snow in the winter can help boost dryland crop productivity in the summer, and no-till management is one way to ensure that blanket coverage, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) research.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) soil scientist David Huggins conducted studies to determine how standing crop residues affect snow accumulation and soil water levels across entire fields. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency, and this work supports the USDA priority of responding to climate change.
Huggins, who works at ...
'Hulk' protein, Grb10, controls muscle growth
2012-08-30
Bethesda, MD — Scientists have moved closer toward helping people grow big, strong muscles without needing to hit the weight room. Australian researchers have found that by blocking the function of a protein called Grb10 while mice were in the womb, they were considerably stronger and more muscular than their normal counterparts. This discovery appears in the September 2012 issue of The FASEB Journal. Outside of aesthetics, this study has important implications for a wide range of conditions that are worsened by, or cause muscle wasting, such as injury, muscular dystrophy, ...