Fibrous food and particle size influence electromyography and the kinematics of oral processing

• Published in: Food research international 2023-03, Vol.165, p.112564-112564, Article 112564
• Main Authors: Oppen, Dominic, Young, Ashley K., Piepho, Hans-Peter, Weiss, Jochen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anisotropy; Biomechanical Phenomena; Biomechanics; Data Analysis; Electromyography; Fibrous food; Food oral processing; Food structuring; Humans; Mastication physics; Particle Size; Superstructure; Texture studies
• ISSN: 0963-9969; 1873-7145
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodres.2023.112564

[Display omitted] •Time dependent oral processing data were fit to a linear mixed model.•Anisotropic and homogenous structures induce different mastication pattern.•Larger particles induce wider movements of the jaw.•The plain effect of fiber length was extracted from the data.•Fiber length has a significant effect on kinematics of jaw movement. Structure-sensory relationships are essential for understanding food perception. Food microstructure impacts how a food is comminuted and processed by the human masticatory system. This study investigated the impact of anisotropic structures, explicitly the structure of meat fibers, on the dynamic process of mastication. For a general understanding of texture-structure relationships, the three typically used deformation-tests: Kramer shear cell-, Guillotine cutting- and texture-profile-analyses were conducted. 3D jaw movements and muscle activities of the masseter muscle were additionally tracked and visualized using a mathematical model. Particle size had a significant effect on jaw movements and muscle activities for both the homogeneous (isotropic) and fibrous (anisotropic) meat-based samples with the same composition. Mastication was described using jaw movement and muscle activity parameters determined for each individual chew. The adjusted effect of fiber length was extracted from the data, suggesting that longer fibers induce a more strenuous chewing in which the jaw undergoes faster and wider movements requiring more muscle activity. To the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents a novel data analysis approach for identifying oral processing behavior differences. This is an advancement on previous studies because a holistic overview of the entire mastication process can be visualized.