Texture refers to those qualities of a food that can be felt with the fingers, tongue, palate, or teeth.
Texture is perceived by the response of touch and comprises two components: It is primarily the response of the tactile senses to physical stimuli that result from contact between some part of the body and the food. Other component is kinesthesis, which is a deep response from muscles and tendons.
Foods have different textures, such as crisp crackers or potato chips, crunchy celery, hard candy, tender steaks, chewy chocolate chip cookies and creamy ice cream, to name but a few.
Achieving the desired textural quality of food has important economic consideration. Such as beef, which is the main determinant of price is based on its texture.
It has also been established that chewing force and chewing movements are strongly influenced by food texture.
The characteristics of perceived ‘texture’ are determined by different physical and physiochemical properties of the food and by the unique and complex features of the human sensory systems.
Studies found that socioeconomic class affected consumer awareness of texture. Those individuals in the higher socioeconomic classes were more aware of texture as food attribute than those in lower socioeconomic classes.
Definition of food texture
