Basic HTML Version
#P259
POSTER SESSION VI:
OLFACTION CNS; TASTE PERIPHERY &
CNS; MULTIMODAL RECEPTION
Tolerance for Bitterness in Chocolate Milk is Not Dependent
on Detection Threshold
Meriel L Harwood, Gregory R Ziegler, John E Hayes
The Pennsylvania State University/Department of Food Science
University Park, PA, USA
Bitterness is generally considered a negative attribute in food,
yet many individuals enjoy some amount of bitterness in products
such as coffee or dark chocolate. In chocolate, bitterness arises
from naturally occurring alkaloids and phenolic compounds. Cacao
is processed to develop the typical chocolate flavor and aroma.
Fermentation and roasting help reduce the extreme bitterness of
raw cacao by destroying the majority of these alkaloids and
phenolics. As it becomes increasingly common to fortify chocolate
products with ‘raw’ cacao to increase the content of potentially
healthy compounds, it will be important to identify the point at
which the concentration of bitter compounds becomes
objectionable, even to those who enjoy some bitterness. Classical
thresholds focus on the presence or absence of a sensation rather
than acceptability or hedonics. Here, we sought to quantify and
compare differences in Rejection Thresholds (RT) and Detection
Thresholds (DT) in chocolate milk spiked with various amounts of
sucrose octaacetate (SOA), a highly bitter GRAS additive with no
known genetic variation in bitterness. A series of a paired
preference tests were used to measure the RT (Experiment 1) and a
forced choice ascending method of limits was used to measure the
DT (Experiment 2). Participants were segmented on the basis of
self-declared solid chocolate preference. For those preferring dark
chocolate, the RT was approximately 3 times higher than the RT for
those preferring milk chocolate. In contrast, the DT for both groups
was functionally identical. This suggests that the tolerance for
bitterness in chocolate products may not be based on the ability to
detect bitterness in those products. Acknowledgements: Supported
by funds from the Pennsylvania State University and the
Pennsylvania Manufacturing Confectioners’Association (PMCA).
Abstracts | 113
Abstracts are printed as submitted by the author(s)
P O S T E R P R E S E N T AT I O N S