Abstract
Recent studies suggest that arachidonic acid is useful to make taste of foods better. The addition of small amount of AA-enriched oil to vegetable oil used for cooking enhanced the umami, kokumi, aftertaste and palatability of such food as croquettes, fried rice and vegetable soup cooked with the oil. Taste of chicken meat can be improved by the amount of dietary AA supplementation. AA content in chicken meat increased linearly with increasing dietary AA content. Sensory evaluation showed that umami and kokumi of the chicken meats with high level of AA content prepared by the dietary AA supplementation scored higher than those with low level of AA. In order to consider the mechanism of AA on food palatability, some studies about effects of AA on gustatory sensation was introduced in this review. As an example, mouse behavioral studies indicated that the decomposed products from oxidized AA affected mouse taste perception to monosodium glutamate, a classic umami taste, and sucrose, a classic sweet taste, via the gustatory sensation. These studies would be useful to understand the roles of oils or fatty acid in taste of foods and be applied to development of more palatable foods.
