Metabolomics identify landscape of food sensory properties

Abstract

Sensory evaluation is a key component of food production strategy. The classical food sensory evaluation method is time-consuming, laborious, costly, and highly subjective. Since flavor (taste and smell), texture, and mouthfeel are all related to the chemical properties of food, there has been a growing interest in how they affect the senses of food. In the past decades, emerging metabolomics has received much attention in the field of sensory evaluation, because it not only offers a broad picture of chemical composition for sensory properties but also revealed their changes and functions in food proceeding. This article reviewed food chemicals regarding the flavor, smell, and texture of foods, and discussed the advantages and limitations of applying metabolomics approaches to sensory evaluation, including GC-MS, LC-MS, and NMR. Taken together, this review gives a comprehensive, critical overview of the current state, future challenges, and trends in metabolomics on food sensory properties.

Keywords:

• Food sensory
• metabolomics
• sensory evaluation
• application trend

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the Key R&D project of Shandong Province (2019YYSP027), the Open Project Program of State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University (No. SKLF-ZZB-202113), Jiangsu distinguished professor Project and Talent plan of Taihu Lake.