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Defining and characterizing the "nutty" attribute across food categories
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Defining and characterizing the "nutty" attribute across food categories

Ashley E. Miller, Edgar Chambers, Alicia Jenkins, Jeehyun Lee, Delores H. Chambers and Jinwook Lee
Food quality and preference, v 27(1), pp 1-7
01 Jan 2013

Abstract

Food Science & Technology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Science & Technology
The term "nutty" has been used to describe a vast array of foods including many foods outside the realm of nuts. However, it is not clear if "nutty" is a single term or if it takes various forms, depending on the type of product. The objective of this study was to determine whether a single nutty term could be used to describe nuttiness in all food products or if additional terms were needed. More than 200 products with potential nutty flavor, including nuts, nut spreads, grains/cereals, seeds, beans/legumes, oils, cheeses, fish, and beverages, were studied. Five "nutty" concepts were found and described with terms, definitions, and references with intensity ratings: overall nutty, nutty-beany, nutty-buttery, nutty-grain-like, and nutty-woody. Four of those attributes, excluding overall nutty, were single concept attributes that described subgroups of nuttiness. Specific terms, such as peanut or almond, that describe a certain type of nut but are separate from the "nutty" character were excluded intentionally because they do not describe nutty, they describe an overall concept flavor beyond nutty. A second panel of trained assessors was used to review the lexicon. This panel used this lexicon to describe a set of 10 products (nuts, grains, beans, seeds, cheeses) and determine if any additional attributes were needed to describe nuttiness. All of the products displayed varying intensities of the nutty attributes and the panel found no additional terms for the "nutty" component were needed. The development and verification of the lexicon has real-world application because it can assist in product development and quality assurance when describing foods with a "nutty" attribute. These terms can be applied across all food categories and is not exclusive to characterizing nuts. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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