Food oral processing is a scientific discipline that explores various food changes and in-mouth sensations that happen from the first bite to swallowing. Numerous indicators have been developed to better understand oral processing such as number of chews, bite size and eating rate associating them with sensory sensations that occur during mastication and caloric intake correlating textural food properties, sensory perception and nutrition. Although chewing is a skill captured during childhood years, it changes over time and can be medically compromised with dysphagia and denture wearing. Therefore, one of important scientific tasks is better understanding of food breakage as it influences comminution, insalivation, mixing of food to form lubricated and cohesive bolus assisting safe and comfortable swallowing.
Various health problems such as obesity or diabetes affect food choices for numerous people worldwide. This has paved the way for developing different types of tailored food, targeting specific food attributes where sensory properties prevailed. However, latest scientific breakthroughs in food oral processing increased the importance of understanding food breakage when developing specific meal solutions for population with limited masticatory performance. In parallel, development of different types of sustainable food, such as plant-based meat analogues or products with insect-based proteins substituting meat and meat products have also experienced textural difficulties in imitating animal origin food.
In this Article collection, we encourage authors to submit original short communications, research articles or reviews related to understanding food breakage during oral processing. Papers may cover a range of different aspects such as new methods in analyzing food breakage, particle size analysis, particle size distribution, mathematical modelling, in vivo / in vitro / in silico modelling, modelling mastication patterns, use of digital solutions and artificial intelligence, etc.
Please contact Xiunan Kong at [email protected] with any queries regarding this Article Collection.
Dr. Ilija Djekic is a full professor and head of the Department of food safety and quality management, Faculty of Agriculture – University of Belgrade (www.agrif.bg.ac.rs). His scientific portfolio is deployed to evaluating food industry performance by using existing and/or developing new diagnostic models and tools for analyzing food quality and food safety at product, process, and company levels. Ilija Djekic has (co-)authored more than 250 full papers out of which (150+) are in journals included in the © ISI Web of Knowledge. He has international experience in over ten countries and serves as an Editor in different peer-reviewed journals. Dr Djekic has appeared on the Stanford list of the top 2% scientists in the world for 2021.
