Sensory perception of fat in milk

The sensory properties of fat in milk were examined by sensory descriptive analysis. To date, no single food additive has been completely successful i n mimicking the sensory properties of fat in milk. This experiment investig ated the effects of various factors and combinations thereof on sensory pro perties and perceived fattiness of milk, and compared them to the actual fa t content (0.1; 1.3 and 3.5% fat milk was used). The other factors studied were the addition of thickener, whitener, cream aroma and homogenisation. M ultivariate data analytical methods (Partial Least Squares Regression) were applied for analysis of the data. The three former additional factors cont ributed significantly to perceived fattiness of the milk, and homogenisatio n had a small but not significant effect. It was shown that a combination o f thickener, whitener and cream aroma in 0.1% fat milk was approximately su ccessful in mimicking sensory properties of 1.3% fat milk. (C) 2001 Elsevie r Science Ltd. All rights reserved.