Developments in instrumental techniques for food flavour evaluation: future prospects

Analytical instruments have enabled the discovery and quantification of many of the key taste and aroma compounds known today in food. Recent trends in instrument development have focused on following the temporal aspects of tastant (or odorant) release from foods, and their delivery to the sensory apparatus during eating. However, there is an increasing demand for detection systems that are not reductionist, but more holistic, with similar sensitivity and selectivity properties to the human sensory apparatus. The output from such detection systems would ideally provide an indication of quality, palatability and hedonistic appreciation. Advances in molecular biology may hold the key to future developments. Cloning of receptor proteins, individual receptors or the whole sensory organ may produce detection systems with similar function to the human sensory organs. However, it will be necessary to deconvolute the signals obtained from these systems to convert them into terms typically used to describe our perception of stimuli.