Coffee beans as a natural test food for the evaluation of the masticatory efficiency

A lot Of test foods have been used during this century to evaluate the mast icatory ability of human subjects. Nevertheless, none has been universally admitted. If the test food by itself is of importance, attention should als o be paid to its behaviour during the chewing test procedure. Therefore, we analysed step by step coffee beans through the processing of the chewing t est and a dry sieving method. The development of a compression test and a c omputer simulation have shown that groups of 11 coffee beans give satisfact ory results and deserve to be used in mastication studies.