機械工学からみた食品の咀嚼と嚥下

抄録

The abilities of swallowing and biting are declining with aging. An engineering approach is useful to modify the food rheology and to compensate the declining abilities. Liquid foods are thickened by polymeric additives to suppress misswallowing, and thus show shear thinning viscosity. The viscosity and shear rate must be decided for each pattern of the disorder. Solid foods are bitten to constitute a bolus with saliva. The fracture mechanism must be characterized quantitatively. Numerical simulations can play an important role to resolve these issues. Rheological instruments like a cheap and handheld viscometer must be developed to realize the cooking optimized for the swallowing disorders.