RELATING SENSORY AND CHEMICAL DATA TO UNDERSTAND FLAVOR

Flavor cannot be measured directly by instruments, it is an interaction of consumer and product. A gas chromatogram, even with 250 peaks on it, does not say anything about the flavor, only about the volatiles. In some cases a character impact compound might be present, in a second group of products a small number of compounds may be responsible for the majority of the flavor, while a third class contains more complex foods, which have generally been processed in some way. A range of methods has been, more or less, successfully used to try to link composition data to flavor data, including the calculation of odor units, fractionation of chromatographic effluent, “nasal appraisal” of chromatographic effluent, and a range of multivariate statistical procedures. However, defects in understanding of the mechanism of operation of the chemical senses has limited the success which has been achieved.