Sensory evaluation of Cheddar cheese: Order of tasting and carryover effects

Fatty Acids Profile and Consumers' Preferences of Pecorino Cheese Manufactured from Milk of Sheep Supplemented with Flaxseed and Ascophyllum nodosum

The impact of flaxseed and Ascophyllum nodosum supplementation in ewes during the summer season on the fatty acid and sensory profile and consumer preference for cheese was evaluated. Comisana ewes (n = 32) were divided into four groups: a control (CON) group fed (30 days) with pelleted concentrate, a flaxseed (FS) group fed with whole flaxseed supplementation (250 g/ewe per day), an A. nodosum (AN) group fed with 5% of A. nodosum (into 1 kg/ewe of pelleted concentrate), and an FS + AN group fed with a combination of algae and flaxseed. Pecorino cheeses were analysed after 1 day (curd) and after 45 days (cheese) of ripening. Curd from the FS and FS + AN groups registered higher contents of MUFA, n-3, and n-3/n-6, and lower levels of atherogenic and thrombogenic indexes than curd from the CON and AN groups, as well as a higher content of C18:3n-3, C18:2t9t12, and CLA9c11t, and n-3 and n-3/n-6 fatty acids. Consumers attributed the lowest scores for appearance attributes to AN Pecorino cheese; while Pecorino cheese from FS and FS + AN was judged to have a high-strength flavour attribute and a low rancid, mouldy, and piquant flavour, in comparison with cheese from AN. Flaxseed supplementation could be an effective strategy to improve the nutritional quality of the lipid fraction of cheese without having a detrimental impact on its sensory attributes, especially during the summer season.

Decisional carryover effects in interval timing: Evidence of a generalized response bias

Decisional carryover refers to the tendency to report a current stimulus as being similar to a prior stimulus. In this article, we assess decisional carryover in the context of temporal judgments. Participants performed a temporal bisection task wherein a probe between a long and short reference duration (Experiment 1) was presented on every trial. In Experiment 2, every other trial presented a duration the same as the short or long reference duration. In Experiment 3, we concurrently varied both the size and duration of stimuli. Experiment 1 demonstrated the typical decisional carryover effect in which the current response was assimilated towards the prior response. In Experiment 2, this was not the case. Conversely, in Experiment 2, we demonstrated decisional carryover from the prior probe decision to the reference duration trials, a judgment which should have been relatively easy. In Experiment 3, we found carryover in the judgment of both size and duration, and a tendency towards decisional carryover having a larger effect size when participants were making size judgments. Together, our findings indicate that decisional carryover in duration judgments occur given relatively response-certain trials and that this effect appears to be similar in both size and duration judgments. This suggest that decisional carryover is indeed decisional in nature, rather than due to assimilative effects in perception, and that the difficulty of judging the previous test stimuli may play a role in whether assimilation occurs in the following trial when judging duration.

Novel Modelling Approaches to Characterize and Quantify Carryover Effects on Sensory Acceptability

Sensory biases caused by the residual sensations of previously served samples are known as carryover effects (COE). Contrast and convergence effects are the two possible outcomes of carryover. COE can lead to misinterpretations of acceptability, due to the presence of intrinsic psychological/physiological biases. COE on sensory acceptability (hedonic liking) were characterized and quantified using mixed and nonlinear models. N = 540 subjects evaluated grape juice samples of different acceptability qualities (A = good, B = medium, C = poor) for the liking of color (C), taste (T), and overall (OL). Three models were used to quantify COE: (1) COE as an interaction effect; (2) COE as a residual effect; (3) COE proportional to the treatment effect. For (1), COE was stronger for C than T and OL, although COE was minimal. For (2), C showed higher estimates (−0.15 to +0.10) of COE than did T and OL (−0.09 to +0.07). COE mainly took the form of convergence. For (3), the absolute proportionality parameter estimate (λ) was higher for C than for T and OL (−0.155 vs. −0.004 to −0.039), which represented −15.46% of its direct treatment effect. Model (3) showed a significant COE for C. COE cannot be ignored as they may lead to the misinterpretation of sensory acceptability results.

Cheese Manufacturing and Bioactive Substance Separation: Separation and Preliminary Purification of cAMP from Whey

Cheese consumption has been gradually increased in China. However, both the manufacturing process of cheese and the utilization of its main by-product were not well developed. Based on the sensory evaluation, Box-Behnken Design (BBD) was performed in the present study to optimize the cheese processing, which was proved more suitable for Chinese. The optimal parameters were: rennet 0.052 g/L, start culture 0.025 g/L and CaCl₂ 0.1 g/L. The composition analysis of fresh bovine milk and whey showed that whey contained most of the soluble nutrients of milk, which indicated that whey was a potential resource of cyclic adenosine-3', 5'-monophosphate (cAMP). Thus, the cAMP was isolated from whey, the results of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis showed that the macroporous adsorption resins (MAR) D290 could increase the concentration of cAMP from 0.058 µmol/mL to 0.095 µmol/mL. We firstly purified the cAMP from the whey, which could become a new source of cAMP.

Sensory Profile of Ewe’s Milk Cheeses

Sensory profiles for several ewe’s milk cheeses were developed and main sensory differences evaluated using a specifically designed methodology. It was stated that the existence of several clearly defined groups of sensory terms were negatively correlated. One group consisted of the attributes odor intensity, sharp odor, brine odor, rennet flavor, and butyric acid flavor. The other group consisted of milky odor, toasty odor, buttery odor and flavor, nutty flavor, and sweet flavor. Results pointed out that every descriptor except surface roughness showed a significant difference ( p< 0.01) among the samples. Main sensory differences were basically attributable to different manufacturing technologies as well as different ripening periods.

Consumer acceptance and sensory evaluation of Monti Dauni Meridionali Caciocavallo cheese

Twelve Caciocavallo cheeses were collected from 6 factories (A, B, C, D, E, F) located in the Monti Dauni Meridionali area (Southern Italy) that adopted different protocols for cheese production. A total of 160 consumers were involved in the sensory evaluation of Caciocavallo cheese after 180 d of ripening. Cheese attributes were used to describe the flavor, texture, and appearance of cheeses. The highest scores for the shiny attribute were assigned to cheeses B, C, and E, whereas color intensity was the highest in cheeses B, D, and F. Strength, salty, and piquant attributes were higher in cheeses F and A because of the use of raw milk (F), rennet paste (A), and percentage of salt in the brine (A, F). Consumers perceived a more granular structure during the second half of chewing of Caciocavallo cheese F, as evidenced by the highest value for the grainy attribute. A positive correlation was found between overall flavor and odor intensity and water-soluble nitrogen, low molecular weight peptides, and free fatty acids and between piquant and butyric and caproic acids. A principal components analysis applied to the sensory attributes accounted for 65% of the total variance. The score plot showed that cheeses F and A were located in a well-defined zone of the plot, with cheeses in this zone displaying higher levels of strength, piquant, and salty attributes. The preference test assigned 40% of the preference to Caciocavallo cheese A, 38% to cheese F, 9% to cheese E, 8% to cheese D, and 7% to cheeses B and C. Sensory evaluation of Monti Dauni Meridionali Caciocavallo cheeses is a useful analysis to highlight the principal attributes able to influence consumers' liking that are related to biochemical features of the cheese.

Herbs, thyme essential oil and condensed tannin extracts as dietary supplements for broilers, and their effects on performance, digestibility, volatile fatty acids and organoleptic properties

1. Herbs, thyme essential oil (EO) and condensed tannin (CT) extracts were compared for their effects, as dietary supplements, on broiler growth performance, nutrient digestibility and volatile fatty acid (VFA) profiles in the gut. Cooked meat from the birds fed on diets with 4 herbs and an EO extract was compared by a taste panel against those fed on the control treatment, for organoleptic properties in the meat. 2. Female broiler chicks were fed on wheat-soybean meal diets from 0-42 d of age. These chicks were given either the basal diet (control), or the basal diet with one of rosemary, garlic or yarrow herbs, mimosa, cranberry or grapeseed CT's, or thyme EO supplements (8 treatments in total). Body weight (BW) and feed consumption (FC) were measured. 3. The garlic supplement tended to improve growth rate over the first 7 d, while mimosa CT and thyme EO supplements reduced weight gains. The mimosa supplement in diets significantly reduced FC to d 21. Meanwhile, the addition of a cranberry supplement reduced the digestibility of DM, OM and N, compared with the controls. Dietary thyme EO, yarrow, rosemary and garlic supplements modified caecal isovaleric and isobutyric acid proportions (presented as 'Other VFA'; p < 0.05). Dietary herb significantly affected the intensity of meat flavour, and the potential of observing both garlic and abnormal flavours. There were large differences between the consumption of red and white meat samples, while meat temperature affected several flavour attributes. 4. Broiler performance and digestibility for birds given dietary garlic and grapeseed CT supplements were similar to the controls, and these supplements appear suitable for dietary inclusion. Careful choices are necessary when selecting dietary plant extract supplements for broilers, but beneficial effects can be observed.

Effects of stocking density and supplement level on milk production and cheese characteristics in Brown cows grazing on mountain pasture

Twenty-eight Brown cows were maintained on a mountain pasture for a period of 40 days and assigned to 4 groups following a factorial design 2 stocking density (0.7 and 1.4 cows/ha)x2 supplement levels (2.4 and 4.8 kg organic matter (OM)/d). Herbage intake, animal body condition score (BCS), milk yield, milk chemical and coagulation properties, cheese composition, rheology and sensory characteristics were measured. The average herbage intake was 12.2 kg OM/d, with a significant effect related to stocking density (low, 13.1 v. high, 11.4 kg OM/d). BCS variation was always negative and changed with supplement level, although with no statistical significance (-0.43 points on average). Milk yield was lower for the group with lower availability of herbage (low supplement and high stocking density: 15.9 kg/d), whereas it was comparable among others groups (16.9 kg/d on average). The group with high supplement and low stocking density produced milk with worse cheese making properties. Cheese composition analyses showed an effect of supplement level on calcium content, and on parameters for degree of ripening, such as nitrogen fractions and lipolysis index. As for the textural parameters, hardness and gumminess were found to be higher with the low level of supplement. The different level of supplementation could differentiate the groups on the basis of the sensory perception of cheese.

Demographic and design effects on beef sensory scores given by Korean and Australian consumers

Data from 648 beef samples, which had been sensory tested by 720 Korean and 540 Australian consumers were used to quantify design and demographic effects on beef sensory scores. The samples were from 36 carcasses, where sides had been either hung by the Achilles tendon or hip suspended. At boning, samples from three muscles (M. triceps brachii, M. longissimus dorsi and M. semimembranosus) were prepared and cooked by either grill (25-mm-thick steaks) or Korean barbeque (BBQ, 4-mm-thick samples) methods. A Latin square design was used to allocate samples to different presentation orders to be tasted in association with different samples. For both cooking techniques each consumer tested a starter sample followed by six experimental samples, with each sample being tasted by 10 different consumers. Design (taste panel, session, order, carry-over, sample and consumer) and demographic (age class, gender, occupation, frequency of eating meat, number of adults and children living in the house, their appreciation of meat and degree of doneness and income) effects were examined separately for tenderness, juiciness, like flavour, overall liking and a composite palatability score, within the four consumer group/cooking method subclasses. For grill samples, order of presentation was significant for most sensory variables. For BBQ samples, order of presentation failed to achieve significance for Australian consumers, but was significant (P < 0.05) for Korean consumers. Carry-over effects tended to be more important for juiciness and like flavour scores than other sensory scores. Demographic effects were generally not significant (P > 0.05) for all consumer group/cooking methods. Correlations between raw scores and those adjusted for design and demographic effects ranged from 0.93 to 0.99, indicating that if the design was balanced, or nearly balanced for design effects, then further adjustment of sensory scores was not necessary. Clipping 40% of outlying consumer scores reduced the variance of the sample mean by ~30%.