Report: Taste Interaction of Receptor Stimuli and Texture of Food

This report investigates the interaction between taste receptor stimuli and the texture of food, focusing on how these factors influence taste perception. The introduction defines taste receptors, their role in analyzing taste, and the impact of food texture. The aim is to analyze taste perception and food choices in malnourished populations, with objectives to determine taste perception, analyze food choices, and understand the relationship between the two. The hypothesis suggests that modifying taste perception and food choices can aid in treating malnutrition. The experimental methods section outlines qualitative and quantitative methods, prototypes, inclusion/exclusion criteria, participant sampling, validation, and risk assessment. A proposed time plan is included to organize the research process. The report emphasizes the importance of understanding these interactions to improve food choices and address health issues related to malnutrition.

TASTE INTERACTION OF
RECEPTOR STIMULI AND TEXTURE
OF FOOD

TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION ONE: INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................1
SECTION TWO: AIM, OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESIS/HYPOTHESIS..............................2
SECTION THREE: EXPERIMENTAL METHODS......................................................................3
SECTION FOUR: PROPOSED TIME PLAN................................................................................5
REFERENCE LIST.........................................................................................................................7

SECTION ONE: INTRODUCTION
TOPIC: Investigation of taste – Taste interaction of receptor stimuli and texture of food.
In the following research, it involves all the aspects that have been tested scientifically. The
manipulation of all the independent variables have been done in order to achieve an efficiency in
the following lab based experiment.
Aim
To analyse the perception of taste and food choices in malnourished people.
INTRODUCTION
Taste receptors are considered as those sensory organs that help in analysing the taste.
These are actually the cells that are located inside taste buds. After the person intakes an amount
of the food, it gets mixed with saliva present inside mouth. So, there are various different types
of food items that are different in taste such as it can be sweet, sour, spicy, etc. In actual, there
are five types of taste receptors and all these have a different influence on various perceptions of
aroma as well as flavour of food (Mosca, van de Velde and Stieger, 2015). Genetics of taste is
also considered as a sort of perception because as per some statistics, it has been proved that
genes actually have some relationship with the receptors and taste sensitivity. Five well known
types of receptors include sweet, saltly, umani, sour and bitter. Salivary amylase is an enzyme
that is being produced by the salivary glands and play an important role in the digestion of
starches in stomach. The actual process is to perform the process of hydrolysis in which the
catalysis of starch is done in form of dextrin and maltose. Texture of food is classified as the
property of specific item that when enters the mouth, is being sensed by the receptors inside the
taste buds. As the food item can be of any type such as it can be crunchy, soft, hard, etc. so, the
texture of food can be analysed by sensing in mouth. So, the texture of food can be of different
types but it can be analysed by the person after in taking it. Usually, tongue receptors are located
inside the taste buds within the mouth.
An actual role of the receptors is to investigate about various changes which means the
stimuli. In this, it is obvious that the person intakes different types of food items; each of
different taste. So, receptor stimuli is classified as the factor that helps in analysing the difference
between different types of tastes the person has. The taste receptors are not activated always but
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they activate when food is being entered inside mouth of the person; the substances get mixed
with saliva and then the taste receptors are activated. It is important as well because at this stage,
the person gets to know type of taste entered in their mouth. The whole concept of food texture
is interesting enough as this influences the perception of a person about their likeliness to a huge
extent. It is because; by this way only, they get to know the difference between different tastes.
There is a strong relationship between the texture of all food and its structure. It is because; the
texture of the food relies on its structural properties (Booth, 2016). So, it throws a major
influence on the texture of the food item. For classifying the texture of a food properly, there are
two basic factors that are needed to be considered and these involve total content of fat and of
moisture. If these two factors are balanced in an efficient way, most probably the texture of food
also stays maintained enough. Otherwise, it may cause some sort of discrepancies in it.
Therefore, it is very important to consider these parameters while the operations and functioning
of food items (Spence, Smith and Auvray, 2015).
There are taste receptor cells that help in analysing that whether the substance taken is
salty or sweet or of any other type. So, the interaction of taste buds with different types of tastes
can easily be analysed with the help of receptor stimuli. It is because; there are cells located
inside these receptors that help in analysing the difference between the tastes of the food. These
stimuli receptors are even capable of analysing if there are some disorders through which the
person is going. It is because; there are two types of disorders, when some substance of abnormal
taste gets inside the mouth, the person feels bad and when the person does not have anything for
a long time and because of that tastes different. These can also be classified as the phantoms that
actually occur in the mind of the person. Then the message is being transmitted within receptors
and brain that there is something wrong either with the taste buds or with the food item
(Regueiro, Negreira and Simal-Gándara, 2017). So, whether it is about the taste of the food or its
texture, the stimuli receptors can help in analysing the difference because there are different
types of tastes and textures as well. Some well-known examples of tastes include salty, sweet,
bitter and sour as well as different types of textures include hard, soft, etc. So, receptor stimuli
helps in analysing the difference between variant tastes and textures of food.
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SECTION TWO: AIM, OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESIS/HYPOTHESIS
AIM
To analyse the perception of taste and food choices in malnourished population.
OBJECTIVES
 To determine the perception of taste in malnourished people
 To analyse the perception of food choices in malnourished population
 To understand the relationship between perception of food choices and taste in
malnourished people
HYPOTHESIS
The expected result is to change the perception of taste and choice of food range because
there might be the possibility that the modified and improvised changes in the perception can
help in treating their malnutrition to a huge extent. It is because; there might be the fact that
some people are actually not aware of the preferences and the food items involving an efficient
set of nutrients (Rolls, 2015). Due to the result of which, the people are facing issues like
malnutrition etc. Therefore, it is important to help these people in changing their preferences and
perceptions towards the accurate range of food so that they can also be able to live a happy and
healthy lifestyle. Receptors play an important role in analysing the difference between different
types of tastes (Slocombe, Carmichael and Simner, 2016). So, involving a balanced and healthy
diet so that the changed and improvised set of perception about taste along with the food choices
can also prove to be helpful enough for the people dealing with malnutrition. With the help of
quantitative data, the researcher can be able to achieve the possible outcomes as the analysis and
evaluation of the perception of taste and choice of food within the category of malnourished
people. Therefore, it will help in achieving the overall outcomes of the study.
SECTION THREE: EXPERIMENTAL METHODS
There are two actual experimental methods that can be used for analysing the perception
of food choices and tastes in case of people who are dealing with malnutrition and both these
methods are discussed as under:
Qualitative method
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Qualitative method is considered as the method in which the data can be gathered by
means of theoretical frameworks and some well-known examples of them include focused
groups, surveys, questionnaires, etc. In this, researcher can use the qualitative method because
information from these sources will help in analysing perception of taste and food choice in case
of malnourished population but it can be a hectic task for the researcher. Therefore, they can
make involvement of quantitative method in this for analysing the influence of perceptions of
taste and food choices on malnourished people.
Quantitative method
Quantitative method is considered as the type which makes use of statistical framework
in order to gain an efficient and appropriate set of information and data. Different means of
quantitative data includes online, books, journals, etc. Therefore, in this research, the researcher
has avoided qualitative information and has used quantitative data because different studies can
help the researcher in a better analysis of perception of malnourished people on tastes and
choices of food.
Prototypes
There are two types of prototypes that can help in making a better evaluation of the
factors that are needed to be included and the ones that can be excluded. It can be decided on the
basis of the inclusion and exclusion criteria discussed as below :
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
Inclusion and exclusion criteria are considered as specific properties that can be
considered while focusing on the properties and operations of the factors involved. There are
various factors that can be considered within this and some well-known examples include race,
gender, etc. In case of the inclusion criteria, an overall impact is quite difficult to be interpreted.
In terms of exclusion criteria, the articles or data that are not acting as suitable enough for the
particular research are being excluded. So, on the basis of factors that can act suitable for the
research and the ones that are not acting relevant, the inclusion and exclusion criteria can be
performed.
Participants
Sampling is considered as a criteria in which a few samples are taken in order to gather
the information or data for research. In this, the information can be taken from a few samples of
some recent studies because on the basis of that, it can be easy enough to analyse and evaluate
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the perception of malnourished people about taste and choice of food because when
complication will be recovered, it will be easy enough to investigate for an appropriate solution
so that the whole issue of malnutrition can be removed by involving modifications and
improvements in process of the perception of options and preferences of food along with taste.
The only preparation that can be done before the testing process is that the studies that have been
collected can be checked whether the chosen ones are suitable and relevant enough in order to
achieve objectives of analysing taste and choice of food perception of malnourished people.
Validation
Validation is considered as another essential process because it helps in analysing the
overall effectiveness of the research. Therefore, it can be used for analysing that whether there
are some factors that are needed to be changed or not (Slocombe, Carmichael and Simner, 2016).
After that, same can be replaced with the modified one. Therefore, this can be used in designing
of the methods so that it will help in achieving a better rate of effectiveness about the factors that
are appropriate and the ones that are not suitable so that the same can be modified with some
new ones.
Risk assessment
Risk assessment is also considered as one of the effective methods because if all barriers
and challenges will be assessed prior, then there might be the possibility that the researcher can
get time to implement ways and strategies that can help in overcoming the risk factor. Therefore,
a pre risk assessment can prove to be helpful enough for the research so that in process of
analysing the perceptions of malnourished people about taste and choice of food, the researcher
can stay ready with the implementation of ideas and strategies for coping with following risks
and barriers. This will help the researcher in analysing the perception completely about choice
of food and taste so that these malnourished people can modify these and can be able to have a
happier and healthier lifestyle.
SECTION FOUR: PROPOSED TIME PLAN
Basis Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8
Identificati
on of the
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topic
Understand
ing the aim
Implementa
tion of
objectives
on the basis
of aim
Hypothesis
of the
research
Implementa
tion of the
experiment
al methods
Implementi
ng
experiment
al design
Conclusion
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REFERENCE LIST
Books and Journals
Slocombe, B. G., Carmichael, D.A. and Simner, J., 2016. Cross-modal tactile–taste
interactions in food evaluations. Neuropsychologia. 88. pp.58-64.
Booth, D., 2016. The psychology of nutrition. Taylor & Francis.
Mosca, A.C., van de Velde, F. and Stieger, M., 2015. Taste enhancement in food gels: Effect
of fracture properties on oral breakdown, bolus formation and sweetness
intensity. Food Hydrocolloids. 43. pp.794-802.
Spence, C., Smith, B. and Auvray, M., 2015. Confusing tastes and flavours. Perception and
its modalities. pp.247-274.
Spence, C. and Piqueras-Fiszman, B., 2016. Oral-somatosensory contributions to flavor
perception and the appreciation of food and drink. In Multisensory Flavor
Perception (pp. 59-79).
Rolls, E.T., 2015. Taste, olfactory, and food reward value processing in the brain. Progress in
neurobiology. 127. pp.64-90.
Wang, T., Glendinning, J., Grushka, M., Hummel, T. and Mansfield, K., 2017. From the
Cover: Drug-Induced Taste Disorders in Clinical Practice and Preclinical Safety
Evaluation. Toxicological Sciences. 156(2). pp.315-324.
Rolls, E.T., 2015. Taste and Smell, Psychology of.
Regueiro, J., Negreira, N. and Simal-Gándara, J., 2017. Challenges in relating concentrations
of aromas and tastes with flavor features of foods. Critical reviews in food science and
nutrition. 57(10). pp.2112-2127.
Online
Slocombe., B. Carmichael., D. and Simner., J. 2016.[Online]. Available through:
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5072487/>
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