Exploring Text Mining for Recent Consumer and Sensory Studies about Alternative Proteins

Increased meat consumption has been associated with the overuse of fresh water, underground water contamination, land degradation, and negative animal welfare. To mitigate these problems, replacing animal meat products with alternatives such as plant-, insect-, algae-, or yeast-fermented-based proteins, and/or cultured meat, is a viable strategy. Nowadays, there is a vast amount of information regarding consumers’ perceptions of alternative proteins in scientific outlets. Sorting and arranging this information can be time-consuming. To overcome this drawback, text mining and Natural Language Processing (NLP) are introduced as novel approaches to obtain sensory data and rapidly identify current consumer trends. In this study, the application of text mining and NLP in gathering information about alternative proteins was explored by analyzing key descriptive words and sentiments from n = 20 academic papers. From 2018 to 2021, insect- and plant-based proteins were the centers of alternative proteins research as these were the most popular topics in current studies. Pea has become the most common source for plant-based protein applications, while spirulina is the most popular algae-based protein. The emotional profile analysis showed that there was no significant association between emotions and protein categories. Our work showed that applying text mining and NLP could be useful to identify research trends in recent sensory studies. This technique can rapidly obtain and analyze a large amount of data, thus overcoming the time-consuming drawback of traditional sensory techniques.

Sensuous Curriculum

Education is a sensory experience. This is the case regardless how a sensorium is constructed. A sensorium is how a group defines, categorizes, and conceptualizes the senses, a Western five-senses model for example. Regardless of the sociocultural norms and values a sensorium engenders, animals, human and nonhuman alike, experience their lives through the senses. From this perspective, anything that might be considered educational, regardless of context and irrespective of questions of what might “count” as schooling, is a sensory experience. Sensuous curriculum sits at the intersection of two transdisciplinary fields, curriculum and sensory studies. As its name suggests, sensuous curriculum is an expression of ongoing critical educational studies of, with, and through the senses. In so doing, sensuous curriculum brings to the fore the extraordinary nature of everyday experiences in educational ecologies, from entangled sociocultural norms and values to the ways that sensory input and interpretation inform every aspect of educational ways of being, knowing, and doing. Sensoria have always been tools for understandings, particularly for continually marginalized groups whose claims are often dismissed through Western, Eurocentric framings. For the notion and instantiation of framings require both a set of universally understood constructs and their applications as well as the necessity of the act: when framing, someone or something is always framed. Providing critical tools for the interruption of such constructs and their use, sensuous curriculum is a rich site of study in ways that are theoretically and materially significant, while offering often underutilized trajectories for the exploration of educational understandings.

Sensory-Directed Identification of Creaminess-Enhancing Semi-Volatile Lactones in Crumb Chocolate

In order to gain a more comprehensive knowledge of the chemical nature of creaminess-related flavor compounds in milk chocolates on a molecular level, crumb chocolate was analyzed by means of activity guided screening techniques. Sensory studies of a triglyceride-free lipid emulsion indicated that the n-pentane extract showed the highest impact regarding creaminess sensation. Enhancement of creaminess by adding anhydrous milk fat fractions to chocolate was demonstrated by fractionated high-vacuum distillation of different fats associated with the chocolate production combined with sensory experiments. Syntheses of various δ-lactones and the quantification of these sensory active semi-volatiles led to the conclusion that the anhydrous milk fat contains a series of γ- and δ-lactones. Cocoa butter revealed a high concentration of δ-hexadecalactone, too. Experiments suggested that lactones are generated from the potential precursors monohydroxyalkanoic acid(s) esterified (mono-tri)glyceride(s) during heating. Sensory studies exhibited recognition thresholds of 29–40 µmol/kg for the long-chain δ-lactones in crumb chocolate. Furthermore, significant enhancement of the retro-nasal creamy flavor was found for δ-tetradecalactone.

Literature and the Senses

Sensory studies is an interdisciplinary field connecting insights from history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, religion, literature, and art to the scientific study of human perception. Though research in this field draws upon a wide variety of methodologies and focuses on different historical periods and geographical areas, it is unified through a core tenet: that the human sensorium is as much a cultural, historical, and aesthetic phenomenon as it is an environmental and a biological one. Social mores, geographies, religious beliefs, and individual abilities shape perception in uniquely cultural ways. Put more succinctly, sensory studies, as a field, argues for the cultural study of the senses and the sensuous study of culture. And language is squarely at the center of scholarly questions about perception; literary studies thus provides useful methodological tools for understanding not only how we represent visceral experiences (such as sensation) to others through language but also how these strategies have changed over time. The study of literature and the senses emphasizes the important role of language in representing visceral experience and the important role of aesthetics and history in shaping literary representations.

Institutionalized Elderly are able to Detect Small Viscosity Variations in Thickened Water with Gum-based Thickeners. Should Texture Classifications be Reviewed?

Background: The prevalence of dysphagia is very high in institutionalized elderly. Knowledge of the rheological and sensory characteristics of the various thickeners is limited, although it has been seen that there are differences between the rheological behaviors of different gum-based thickeners with different composition. We have not found sensory studies of viscosity in institutionalized elderly. Our hypothesis was that viscosity ranges established by the scientific societies seem to be very wide and individuals might be able to detect small differences within the same texture range. The objectives of our study were comparing the rheological characteristics of two commercial gum-based thickeners with different composition, dissolved in water under standard conditions, and checking whether it could be possible to detect different viscosities within the same texture (nectar and honey) with the use of sensory analysis (both with adults and elderly). Methods: Two commercial thickeners based on gums (NC and RC) were studied analyzing their viscosity in water with different concentrations (shear rate: 50 s-1; temperature: 22-25°C). A sensory analysis involving 26 elderly and 29 adult controls was carried out to evaluate whether differences within nectar and honey textures among gum-based thickeners could be distinguished. Results: As the shear rate increases, viscosity decreases (non-Newtonian and pseudoplastic behavior). At the same concentration, each thickener produces a different viscosity (p<0.05). Institutionalized elderly detected viscosity differences in nectar range of 49.9 (2.5) mPa·s (p<0.05) y 102.2 (4.7) mPa·s (p<0.0001). They also detected viscosity differences in honey texture range of 134.6 (9.7) mPa·s (p<0.05) y 199,3 (9,2) mPa·s (p<0.0001). Their caregivers also detected viscosity differences in both viscosity ranges (p<0.0001). Conclusions: Our results suggest that the accepted viscosity ranges for the different textures might be too wide because institutionalized elderly and their caregivers are able to discern small differences in viscosity in nectar and honey textures. Gum-based thickeners with different composition showed differences in viscosity capacity, so they are not interchangeable.

Worlding Excavation Practices

This paper seeks to do justice to the often complex, messy, and sometimes ambiguous meaning making practices of archaeological field work. Taking recent adoptions of assemblage theory and sensory studies in archaeology as an angle of arrival, I contribute here to discussions on self-reflective and interpretive archaeology. Drawing on empirical encounters with troweling and backfilling at the Ardnamurchan Transitions Project in western Scotland, I describe the production of archaeological knowledge in terms of storying: the coming into existence of an earthly archaeological world through sensory correspondences. I show how storying generates meaning and knowledge through correspondences of more proximate with more distant excavation practices and interplays between them. Furthermore, I propose that through storying, archaeological meaning making as well as knowledge production can be understood as worlding: the generation of sustained remembrances of earthly events with lively corresponding materials.

Acceptability of peanut candy with different proportions of Kinako soy flour and substitution of sucrose by sucralose

ABSTRACT Objective The aim of this research was to produce new formulations of peanut “paçoca” candy, replacing peanut flour with Kinako flour, and check if the addition of this ingredient bears a negative impact on acceptance. Methods Eight formulations of peanut “paçoca” candy, sweetened with sucrose and sucralose, were prepared with partial and total replacement of peanut flour by Kinako flour. The assessment of the acceptance was carried out by 121 tasters, using the 9cm unstructured hedonic scale. Willingness to purchase the different samples was evaluated by a 5-point scale. In addition, a sociodemographic questionnaire was applied. The results were submitted to ANOVA and Tukey’s test. Results Most of the survey participants stated that they rarely consume soybeans and/or soy derivatives. Regarding acceptance, among the eight formulations analyzed, samples sweetened with sucrose, containing either 100% peanut flour and 50% peanut flour replaced by Kinako flour, did not differ significantly between them (p<0.05) and were the most appreciated by consumers considering the flavor and overall impression attributes. Conclusion The results showed that replacing peanut flour with Kinako flour in peanut “paçoca” candy is feasible and that more sensory studies are needed to add this flour to other foods, to provide the nutritional benefits present in soybean.