抄録
This paper reviews mastication studies from the viewpoint of food and nutrition scientists. Food texture is an important factor for food quality and primarily determines whether the food is easy or difficult to eat. Texture studies have been conducted by sensory evaluation (subjective methods) or mechanical measurements using instruments (objective methods). Recently, safe and easily edible foods have been increasingly required for elderly people as the elderly population has hugely increased in Japan. Many such foods lack palatability because they all havea similar texture, even though they are highly nutritious and contain various raw food materials. Classical methods for evaluating food texture may not be suitable for clarifying the textural properties of food for the elderly. The sensibility of textural properties for the elderly people differs from that for young subjects, who most often participate in subjective sensory evaluation. Furthermore, instruments for mechanical tests cannot completely mimic complex human mastication in objective methods. Therefore, direct measurement of human mastication is introduced as a third method for food texture studies. Electromyography of jaw-closing muscles is the most popular of mastication recording techniques used by food scientists. The elderly have fewer teeth and greater muscle fatigue, which cause low masticatory efficiency. Therefore, food for the elderly must be objectively evaluated with evidence based on masticatory science. Collaboration between food and dental sciences is needed to optimize the textural and nutritional properties of foods.
