Appearance Properties-A Significant Contribution to Sensory Food Quality?

Word association tests, by (a) presenting food items and collecting free associations from subjects and (b) by presenting descriptors and requesting food products, were performed to establish any relationships between descriptors for appearance properties and food materials. The study demonstrates that appearance descriptors are as frequently associated with food products as texture or flavour descriptors. This underlines the importance of appearance properties such as colour or physical form within the total process of the assessment of food quality. The study also revealed that there are certain descriptors of appearance properties which are strongly linked to specific food materials.