References

Barron , J. J., Ashton, C., & Geary, L. (2006). The Effects of Temperature on pH
Measurement. Reagecon Diagnostics, Technical Services Department .
Reagecon Diagnostics.
IFST. (2013). Food Texture. Retrieved July 1, 2013, from Institute of Food Science
and Technology:
http://www.ifst.org/learninghome/helpforteachers/lessonplantopics/foodt
exture/
MBHES. (2008, October 29). The Importance of pH in Food Quality and Production .
Retrieved July 1, 2013, from MBH Engineering Systems:
http://www.mbhes.com/ph_&_food.htm
Nielsen, S. S. (Ed.). (2010). Food Analysis (Fourth Edition ed.). NY, USA: Springer.

EXERCISE 1:
OBJECTIVE EVALUATION OF FOOD: DISCUSSION
*red yung flow ng discussion para makuha nyo ang train of thought ko habang ginagawa
ito. Delete these red comments.
Why it is important to evaluate foods objectively
Objective evaluation is an essential method in the food industry in maintaining the quality
and consistency of food products and also for the development and improvement of new
products. It describes the characteristics of food in an index that does not rely on the
very variable human senses through the use of instruments and physical and chemical
techniques. This characteristic then makes objective evaluation desirable for routine
tests. Data or results of these evaluations are mostly numerical and can be compared to
scientific standards that have already been established.
Introduce products in the exercise
However, one of the limitations of objective evaluation is that it can only measure up to
one specific attribute of a product. Thus, only tests of characteristics that have a
significant impact on the quality of the product will be conducted. In this exercise, the
products that were objectively evaluated were cheese and cultured milk.
What were the experiments conducted for each product and the rationale for conducting
them
For cheese, the tests that were conducted included: weight, color, firmness, pH and
salinity determination. Weight measurement was applicable because cheese is solid.
Color determination defined very specifically the yellow color trait of cheese. Firmness
measurement was also necessary to know precisely how soft or how hard the cheese is.
pH determination was conducted to find out how acidic or how basic the cheese was.
Lastly, salinity was also determined considering that cheese has a particular salty flavor.
All these attributes - weight, color, softness or hardness and salinity or saltiness
describe cheese and the combination of these attributes is a reflection of the quality of
the cheese and, with sensory evaluation, is also a reflection for consumer preference or
acceptability.
For cultured milk, the tests that were conducted included the following: Volume, color,
pH, titratable acidity and soluble solids determination. Volume was determined, and not
weight, because milk is liquid. The creamy white color of the product was also quantified
through color determination. pH and titratable acidity tests were also determined to find
out how acidic the product is, considering that all milk products are acidic because of
lactic acid. Lastly, the soluble solids concentration was also conducted to find out how
much sugar is dissolved in the product, considering that it has a particular sweet flavor.
Similar to what was mentioned earlier, all these attributes- volume, color, acidity and
soluble solids concentration - define milk and these attributes altogether say something
about the products quality and consumer acceptance.
What were the experiments you did in this class? Explain each one - what it is, whats its
principle, whats its purpose and the findings or the result in the experiment? What does
this imply? What recommendations do you have?
WEIGHT and VOLUME
First, the products weight and volume measurements were taken. The purpose of these
tests is to measure or describe quantity. Both cheese and milk have characteristics for
weight and volume. However, weight measurement is more applicable for cheese and
volume measurement is more applicable for milk because cheese is solid and milk is
liquid.
It is more accurate, and also convenient, to measure the quantity of liquids in terms of
volume because of the physical property of liquids wherein they take the shape of their
container. On the other hand, it is more accurate and practical to describe the quantity of
solids in terms of weight because they have fixed dimensions and volume measurement
presents difficulties during the process because solids come in different and irregular
shapes.
To support this, the packaging of the products also declare their contents in terms of
weight in grams for the cheese and volume in ml for the milk.
The results of the comparison of the declared quantity of the products with their actual
quantities show that there is very little percent deviation for the cheese at 0.97% and
absolutely no deviation for the cultured milk. This implies that the declared quantity value
is accurate and that the portion control for both the cheese and milk product is effective.
COLOR MEASUREMENT
Next, the products colors were quantified. It is important to measure color of foods since
it has been established that, along with appearance, flavor and texture, this is a quality
that determines food acceptance (Nielsen, 2010). Thus, it is important to control the
color of food products during mass production to achieve the same desired effect on the
consumers when they visually assess the food.
In this exercise, two methods for color measurement were used. The first method was
the manual use of the Munsell Book of Colors while the second one used a more
advanced device - the Hunter Lab. Using the Munsell Book of Colors, color is further
described in terms of hue, value and chroma. Hue is instinctively the main color of the
product; value is the lightness or darkness of the color; while chroma or saturation,
indicates the intensity of the color (Nielsen, 2010). In this exercise, the milks color was
described to be 10 YR 8/4. This shows that the product has a Yellow-Red hue. Its value
being 8 implies that it is very light and is very close to be completely white at 10. Its
chroma at 4 suggests that the product is dull in terms of color and is closer to neutral
gray at 0.
The HunterLab Colorimeter makes use of the concept of the Hunter L,a,b Color Space
wherein all colors are being uniformly spaced in 3 dimensions with L denoting lightness,
a representing the red(+) and green(-) coordinates and b representing the yellow(+) and
blue(-) coordinates (Nielsen, 2010). In the exercise, the cheeses mean L value is 76.3.
This implies that its color is light because it is closer to 100 which is white and far from 0
which is black. The mean a coordinate of the cheese is 1.8, which shows that the color
has a red characteristic because it is positive. However, the coordinate shows that the
color has only a hint of red because the value at 1.8 is very small. The mean b
coordinate, on the other hand, is 29.7 and this implies that the color has a strong yellow
characteristic.
Other methods for color measurements include the use of the CIELab and CIE LCH
color scale. These two color-order systems are widely adopted in the food industry.
CIELab is basically the same as the HunterLab but it has been improved to have a more
accurate and uniform spacing between colors (Nielsen, 2010). CIE LCH is quite parallel
to the Munsell system where L is the value or the lightness, C is the chroma or the
intensity of the color and H is the hue or the instinctive color of the item (Nielsen, 2010).
Using these color scales, several colorimeters with varying features and specifications
are now available for industrial and research application (Nielsen, 2010).
TEXTURE
Next, the texture of the products were also described using a stand-model penetrometer.
The penetrometer aims to describe the firmness or tenderness of food items. Thus,
between cheese and cultured milk, only cheese was tested because it was only
applicable to it. However, this test measures only one of the many attributes that
comprise texture. Texture also includes cohesiveness, springiness, resilience, and these
attributes of foods are being scientifically studied under rheology. However, rheological
properties should only be considered to be a subset of textural properties of food since
sensory detection of texture encompasses factors beyond the scope of rheology
(Nielsen, 2010).
Textural properties of food are influenced by several factors including homogeneity of
the item or the extent of its particles to be suspended uniformly across the space or the
extent of it being well-mixed. The isotropic property, or the consistency of the item to
respond to a specific load or force regardless of direction, is another factor (Nielsen,
2010). Another factor is temperature. A concrete example on how T affects texture is
how typical viscosity of most food items decrease as T increases (Nielsen, 2010). The
addition of products that are dilatents, such as cornstarch, also affect viscosity and
texture (Nielsen, 2010). In this experiment, temperature also played a role in the
evaluation of the firmness of the cheese. At lower temperatures, cheese would be
harder, while in higher temperatures it would be softer.
In this exercise, the penetrometer was the only gadget used to determine the texture of
the solid product, cheese, in the form of its firmness. The penetrometer measures the
depth of penetration of a cone-shaped weight or the plunger inside a food product in a
given time period, which is 5 seconds. The plunger used for cheese was that with the
larger diameter because cheese is quite soft. The results show that the product is soft as
it could penetrate deeply at an average of 23.13 mm. However, the SD values show
inconsistencies between trials. This may be because different people handled the
instrument per trial which may have caused differences in estimation of the 5s time
frame.
Other tests that can be done to objectively evaluate the texture of solid foods include the
texture analyzer from Stable MicroSystems which is primarily used for solid and semi-
solid foods (IFST, 2013). For liquid foods, viscometers or rheometers may be used
(IFST, 2013).
ACIDITY
Next, the acidity of the food items were described through measuring the pH and
titratable acidity. Titratable acidity deals with measuring the total acid concentration
contained in food. Titration is used to find out this value and this process involves
exhausting the intrinsic acids in the product with a standard base (Nielsen, 2010). This
test is a better predictor of the effect of the acidity on the products flavor than pH
(Nielsen, 2010). pH, however, describes how much hydronium ions are present in the
solution and this is significant in food science because microorganisms need these ions
to proliferate (Nielsen, 2010).
In the experiment, the pH of the cultured milk was 5.9 and its titratable acidity was 0.5%.
The pH of regular milk is around 6.8 and the reason why the cultured milk has a lower
pH value is because suitable microorganisms had been added and as a result of
fermentation, these microorganisms synthesize acids that lower the pH of the milk. This
decrease in pH increases the shelf life of the milk (MBHES, 2008). The titratable acidity
Codex standard for fermented milk should be at a minimum of 0.3%. The cultured milk in
question is then within this specification. Since titratable acidity is expressed in terms of
the predominant acid, the results show that the cultured milk is 0.5% lactic acid by
weight.
In measuring the pH of the products, it was also crucial to note the temperature because
an increase or decrease in any solutions temperature will affect the viscosity which, in
turn, will affect the mobility of the ions in the solution (Barron , Ashton, & Geary, 2006).
For example, a higher T will lead to a decrease in viscosity and an increase in the
mobility of the ions. A higher T may also lead to an increase in the numbers of ions in
the solution because of the dissociation of molecules, especially for weak acids and
weak bases (Barron , Ashton, & Geary, 2006). These effects will then reflect in the pH
value readings.
SOLUBLE SOLIDS
Lastly, soluble solids concentration was taken for both products. The refractometer was
used for the cultured milk because it has a sweet taste, thus, it has a significant sugar
content that the refractometer can determine. The refractometer works on the ability of
the sugars to deviate light. The device actually measures the refractive index of the
solution and reads it as degrees Brix. In the experiment, a hand-held model was used
and temperature was taken during the process for correcting the reading. Temperature
correction is necessary when reporting the soluble solids concentration because the
refractometers reference temperature is set at 20
0
C. Thus, for temperatures higher or
lower than 20
0
C, the reading is not accurate, thus, must be corrected. The corrected
%TSS for cultured milk was found to be 14.9%.
For solid foods packed in liquid, it was necessary to homogenize the sample first before
determining the soluble solids concentration so that the large chunk of solid would come
in smaller and finer particles and so light could pass through it since this is the method of
how the refractometer works. Also, it needs to be homogenized so that it can be spread
and can be correctly placed into the refractometer.


The salinometer was used to measure the soluble solids in the cheese mixture because
cheese has a salty taste, thus, a significant amount of salt that can be quantified using
the salinometer. This test for soluble solids is an objective method for describing flavor.
Other compounds that can be determined by percent soluble solids include alkaloids and
these determine the bitter taste.