Using 3D printers for food production, researchers have discovered that it is possible to change the way we taste by altering the structure of food, as reported by DairyReporter.

Technology and Consumer Taste

By 3D printing a structure of chocolate and cream cheese, they found that the order in which the two foods were printed, determining the texture, affected how much people liked them.

3D printed food can do many things. It can print real meat, vegan alternatives to fish, and can even evoke memories through taste.

But in a paper published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, researchers explored the ability of 3D printing to reveal more about how we taste.

The researchers 3D printed seven different structures of chocolate and cream cheese, generating different textures. They then recruited 120 people from the University of Applied Sciences in Bern, the School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences to taste the structures. Subsequently, subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their overall taste preference for the structures, as well as mouthfeel, appearance, and taste.

"Our data suggests that both temporal sensory perception and overall perception can be modified by adapting 3D structures using additive manufacturing (AM)," says Johannes Burkard, one of the researchers, to FoodNavigator.

"We observed that the 3D arrangement of two different masses in terms of sensory and textural properties modulated the overall taste scores, especially due to differences in mouthfeel and taste," Burkard continues.

The experiment highlighted "the importance of texture-taste interactions at the physical level, especially when pairing two distinct sensory phases, as we did." Namely, the interaction between the texture and taste of the two foods was crucial in determining how people tasted them.

"Therefore," Burkard concludes, "it is clear that flavor is not only created by taste, but by the combination of visual appearance, temporal texture, and aroma."

"The possibilities presented by 3D printing"

Without 3D printing and especially additive manufacturing, these discoveries may not have been possible. Allowing them to create complex food structures gives researchers much more flexibility in the research they can conduct.

"As a researcher, it can facilitate the creation of complex shapes through AM to help unravel the mysteries of perception formation," Burkard tells us. "It provides an easily adjustable approach to deciphering the fundamental elements of aroma perception.

"From an industrial perspective," he continues, "this approach demonstrates, hopefully, how food perception can be easily modified by arranging two different masses using AM to create new classes of food products with personalized perceptions." (Photo: Freepik)

(Reference: “Impact of spatial distribution on the sensory properties of multiphase 3D-printed food configurations”)