Mouthfeel is an important part of food evaluation, considering texture, taste, and emotional response. Companies focus on mouthfeel in the production of packaged foods to ensure consumer satisfaction. Consider the mouthfeel of food and how it interacts with other foods for a better eating experience.
Mouth to mouth is a technical term that is used to discuss the chemical and physical interactions of food with the mouth. When professional tasters evaluate foods and beverages, mouthfeel is a very important part of their evaluation, as you might imagine, and people can respond very differently to different foods, depending on the mouthfeel. This phenomenon is the result of a very complex series of interactions and explains why simple foods can sometimes be so difficult to replicate.
When many people are asked about their response to a food, they are usually asked about the taste of the food. Taste definitely plays a role in mouthfeel, with tasters considering the levels of saltiness, bitterness, sweetness, heat, and umami in their food, but taste is only one facet of in the mouth. Another consideration is the texture of the food in the mouth, how it feels to eat, and the persistence of the finish after people have bitten into it. Mouthfeel also considers the physical and chemical changes in food as it is chewed, ranging from the way some foods dissolve with exposure to saliva to the way some foods taste bitter if they are chewed for too long.
Some commonly used terms in reference to texture include: chewiness, hardness, chewiness, moisture, cohesion, graininess, density, bounce, juiciness, dryness, release, stickiness, and moisture. The hard pop of candy, for example, has a very different mouthfeel from the chewy stickiness of caramel, explaining why the two foods taste so different when made with very similar ingredients.
When mouthfeel is assessed, people also pay attention to their emotional reaction to food. Foods like candy bars, with a rich, buttery smoothness, often make people feel satisfied, happy, or relaxed. Hard candies, on the other hand, can be more agitating, as people suck or chew on the candy, while crunchy fruits can be emotionally refreshing.
Companies specializing in the production of packaged foods are often forced to consider the mouth. Mouthfeel plays a vital role in the reception of fast foods, ready-to-eat (MRE) meals, and other packaged foods designed for convenience. If the mouthfeel is “wrong” for consumers, they will usually avoid the product in the future, so companies spend a lot of research energy to develop foods that taste and feel good, as well as provide nutritional value.
You don’t have to be an expert taster to think about the palate. The next time you have something to eat, think about the texture of the food in your mouth, how the taste and texture change as you chew, and how you feel while eating. You might also think about how different foods interact with each other: For example, if you taste chocolate after you eat curry, it will taste very different from what it does on its own.
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