The definition of Food flavor

The acceptability of almost everything that passes the lips, include food, drink, confectionary, is dependent to some extent on its flavor.

Food flavor normally are compounds, many of which are natural, although there are also many synthetic ones, which are added to foods to flavors or to modify exiting flavors.

Food flavor also may be a single chemical entity of naturals or synthetic origin. In the early days of human existence, salt, sugar, vinegar, herbs, spices were added to foods to improve their taste or to produce special, desirable taste.

Flavor in food and food flavorings are terms which vary in definition though they are related in purpose.

It can collectively referred to as the detection of taste and aroma from the food. Taste buds of mouth and tongue are stimulated by trace elements such as zinc and other transition series metal ions.

The range of natural and synthetic flavorings available to the modern food technologists is very large.

The most widely used sources of food flavors are: herbs, roots, fruits, seeds, berries, and barks. Many flavors are extracted from oils, e.g. peppermint, clove, citrus oils. The addition of a flavor enable the manufacturer to reduced a consistent product.

Flavors can be classified by the general sensations that one feels when eating different foods. Favor comes from three different sensations: taste, trigeminal and aroma.

It is generally agreed that taste sensations are divided into four major categories: saltiness, sweetness, sourness and bitterness.

Smelling and tasting the target food will give the flavorist a good idea of which aroma characteristics are important. Often the term flavor and smell are used interchangeably. Food flavor and aroma are difficult to measure and difficult to get people to agree on.

The flavor of food is created by aromatic chemicals that are biosynthesized during normal metabolic processes in plants and animals and possible further modified by cooking or processed.

This intrinsic flavor of food represents the complex impact made by these aromatic components on the sense of odor and taste.

The definition makes clear that flavor is a property of (a material of food) as well as of the receptor mechanism of the person ingesting the food.
The definition of Food flavor