Abstract
Texture is important in terms of both food palatability and the safety of eating. Recently, the importance of texture has been emphasized for the development of nursing-care foods in recent aged society, where the number of patients with mastication and swallowing difficulties is increasing. Texture design of these food products is now one of the most important tasks in the food industry in Japan. This article reviews the importance of texture as an essential attribute of food development and also the usefulness of hydrocolloids as a texture modifier, which also serves to enhance favorable flavors or to mask unfavorable flavors during oral processing. The article also covers recent trials by our research group on electromyography and in vivo acoustic analysis to describe the food texture and to find some objective parameters relating to the mastication and swallowing eases. Finally, some industrial outputs will be introduced as a result of our texture studies, particularly the development of gelling agents for dyspagia diets.
