Improving the properties of cheese snacks by applying acoustic and textural mapping
PI: Selvarani Govindasamy-Lucey
Govindasamy-Lucey a distinguished scientist with the Center for Dairy Research (CDR). She is responsible for coordinating CDR research projects, including company research and work with graduate students. Govindasamy-Lucey has a doctorate in food science and has worked with the CDR for more than twenty years.
Sound is an important consumer expectation in snacks (e.g., cookies, chips, etc.) with various attributes like crispiness and crunchiness. Chewing sounds, such as crispiness, are primarily an acoustic sensation detected by the ear during the fracture of a crispy food. Snack foods also must meet various textural expectations. In developing new snacks, researchers should monitor both textural and acoustic parameters. This can be achieved by recording and analyzing sounds during texture tests. For example, compression in a texture analyzer device equipped with a microphone. Acoustic parameters, such as loudness and intensity, are found to be related to sensory crispiness and crunchiness of various snacks. However, there have been no studies on the squeakiness of fresh cheese curds or methods to extend the squeak of cheese curds beyond a few days. This project aims to explore methods for monitoring sounds during actual human chewing of cheese curds in the mouth by using ear microphones. This project aligns to Dairy Task Force 2.0 recommendation #45 (‘Emphasis on value-added and specialty cheese in Wisconsin).