The anatomy of a bite: A guide to your mouth's experience with texture

Initial contact and mouthfeel

This phase is all about the first impression and involves the lips, tongue, and palate.

• Lips and fingers: These are the first points of contact. They assess external properties like surface texture (rough, smooth), temperature, and initial firmness.
• Tongue: The tongue is the most versatile tool for texture, judging everything from smoothness and creaminess to grittiness and sliminess. It also plays a key role in identifying the size and shape of particles.
• Palate (roof of the mouth): The palate works with the tongue to judge properties like stickiness, tackiness, and cohesiveness. Think of how a sticky caramel adheres to the roof of your mouth - this is the palate and tongue working in tandem.

Mastication: The role of teeth

During chewing, the teeth apply different types of force to break down food, and each type of tooth has a specific function.

• Incisors (front teeth): These sharp, flat teeth are designed for cutting and biting. They are responsible for the initial "bite force" and are key to assessing the fracturability or crispness of a product, such as a cracker or a carrot.
• Canines: While less critical for textural assessment in many foods, canines are used for tearing and ripping. They contribute to the toughness assessment of fibrous foods like meat.
• Premolars and molars (back teeth): These broad, flat teeth are built for grinding and crushing. They are essential for breaking down food and are the primary tools for measuring hardness, chewiness, and gumminess. The force they exert and the time it takes to break down the food into a bolus ready for swallowing provides the full "chewiness" profile.

Post-mastication

After chewing, the "residual" texture and mouthfeel are assessed.

• Saliva and tongue: Saliva mixes with the broken-down food, and the tongue assesses how it dissolves or disperses. This phase is critical for properties like melting consistency (chocolate), juiciness (fruit), and overall mouth coating (fats and oils).

How a Texture Analyser can be used to imitate these actions

A Texture Analyser can perform various tests that precisely imitate the actions of the mouth and teeth.

Prior to entering the mouth, the consumer may bend or snap the food item and in doing so make an assessment of the flexibility/chewiness or fracturability – a Three Point Bend test would simulate this action.

For the initial bite, a Penetration test using small cylinders to represent the incisors or Blade Shear Test or simulates the cutting action of the incisors, measuring the force required to fracture or break a product.

To mimic the grinding of the molars during mastication, a Texture Profile Analysis (TPA) test is used. This involves a two-cycle compression that precisely measures the forces and distances of the "first and second bite," providing objective data on properties like hardness, cohesiveness, and chewiness.  

For the final, post-mastication phase, specialised probes and fixtures can measure adhesiveness (imitating the tongue's detachment from a sticky product) or a Back Extrusion Test can quantify the consistency of a semi-solid as it would be manipulated by the tongue and saliva.

Ultimately, understanding how the mouth perceives texture allows us to bridge the gap between human sensory experience and objective, scientific measurement. By using a Texture Analyser to replicate the intricate actions of the lips, tongue, and teeth, we move beyond subjective opinion and into a world of data-driven innovation. This ensures that every product delivers a consistently satisfying experience, delighting consumers and solidifying brand trust, one perfectly textured bite at a time.