How To Balance Your Diet By Colours, Flavours, and Texture?

 Rainbow Colours

With the onset of summer, suddenly you start observing fruit and vegetable markets crowded with a variety of lush green vegetables and colourful fruits. A plate full of fruits and vegetables resembles a rainbow in the sky plus their consumption provides the required nutrients for your body.

Health and nutrition balance

To keep yourself healthy, a well-balanced diet is of utmost importance. A healthy diet supplies all the necessary nutrients and energy needed by our body to work efficiently. A lack of healthy and well-balanced diet can lead to fatigue and diseases. A healthy diet should contain vitamins, antioxidants, minerals, carbohydrates, proteins and fats.

Although cooking at home is the best option, be it working couples or students, a fast-paced lifestyle doesn’t permit that much leisure where one can take time out for cooking. Read-to-eat and ready-to-cook food is fast becoming an inescapable part of our busy lives. Frozen foods, vegetables, parathas and dairy products are some of the processed foods that can be considered healthy and well balanced. According to food experts and dieticians, there are many foods that can be regarded as healthy regardless of being processed or not. Yoghurt, peanut butter, frozen meat and vegetables, tomato puree, soups, smoothies, etc. are among the few great options for a quick as well as a healthy meal.

Colours

The colour of our food greatly impacts our visual perception. The visual appeal as well as aroma when combined together produces strong craving, thus making the appearance of food a very crucial aspect.

In this age of social media where food also needs to be appealing and only then it will be “shareable,” eye-appealing and bright coloured food is a must. Any loss of colours due to oxidation, extreme changes in temperature, moisture or storage conditions needs the addition of food colourings to provide the desired shade and appeal. Food colours are also used for artistic or decorative purposes. They are available in natural as well as artificial forms.

Flavours

Combine aroma with taste and you’ll get the flavour. The aroma is the intake smell of food through our nose and taste happens via several receptors in our mouth. The human tongue can decipher multitudes of tastes like salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami when combined with different aromas. With changes in food production process and requirements, there is growing interest in functional foods delivering health benefits and reducing synthetic additives. Due to the demand for clean-label products, the role of natural flavours has also fairly increased. Flavours are now being extensively used by food manufacturers to attract more consumption of their products.

In India, only FSSAI-approved (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) flavouring and colouring agents are authorized to be used in food products. FSSAI defines flavourings as natural flavours and flavouring substances, nature-identical flavours and artificial food flavours. These flavours and colours can be added as per the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices).

Texture

Texture can make or break the characteristics of food which is why the top flavour companies in India and around the globe make use of it to create better products. While taste is king and flavour remains the most important and is most among developed senses. However, the texture of food does matter. We all have preconceived notions about certain foods, like soft, crunchy, or mushy. And if it doesn't feel that way while you chew it, you won’t like it.

Finally

Be serious with your health. Make sure that you follow a healthy and green diet by incorporating fruits, vegetables, healthy snacks and functional food in your diet.

The Genetics Behind Taste And Flavour Perception

 Future food:

We all have been hearing stories since childhood about how advanced humans will be in the future. There’ll be no need for cooking, just one pill will provide all the necessary nutrients and power.

Yes, it's true that humans will be more advanced than they are today but their love for cooking will never fade away. We already have pills and powder being taken as supplements, but no pill or gel can replace the real food. Craving for good food will always be a part of human nature. Humans have already been to space, and now are able to spend 6 months at a time on the International Space Station. Neither they prepare their meals there, nor they take food pills. Instead, they have a formulated category of food that's specially prepared to provide taste and nutrition

Sensorial delight:

In today’s stressful world, there are very few things that we enjoy. Eating tasty food is one among those. We rely solely on food to give us pleasure and nutrition. Chocolates, cream biscuits, burgers, french fries, cold drinks and ice cream can bring joy and happy feelings to all of us. Our food preference depends on multiple factors but one thing is constant and that is taste. Which is why, invoking sensorial delight becomes an important objective for bakery and confectionery flavours manufacturers.

Sensory/organoleptic properties:

These properties are perceived by human senses - appearance, taste, texture. The human tongue can perceive 5 main tastes, sweetness, saltiness, sourness, umami and bitterness. Our olfactory receptor can sense limitless aromas. Our perception of the flavour of a particular food is the result of a combination of various tastes and aromas, coupled with texture and temperature.

Supertasters:

The ability to perceive a taste or flavour varies from person to person. It may depend on genetics, memories, hypersensitivity to flavours or medical condition. Those with hypersensitivity to flavours are referred to as supertasters. Approximately, a quarter of the population is believed to be supertasters, while the other quarter to be non-tasters. The rest of the population are thought to be medium tasters. According to a study, there are more female supertasters than male.

Understanding supertasters’ taste buds:

Our ability to taste bitter compounds is a result of evolutionary processes because many times bitterness in plants or fruits indicated the presence of toxic compounds. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower are healthy vegetables, but supertasters tend to avoid any of these because they have a bitter flavour. Supertasters may often use extra salt, sugar and fat to mask the bitterness of food items.

Genetic factors affect flavour sensation:

Researchers have discovered that our olfactory receptors are located in the region where higher genetic variations take place. Slightest variation can change the shape of these receptors, resulting in a difference in taste perception and aroma.

Bottom line:

We have just begun to understand how genes can alter our perception of taste and smell, and how this affects our food preferences. Thorough research can help food flavouring companies understand how various genes combine and influence our sensorial perception and dietary intake. Another important area of research can be to understand that by modifying our taste genes, can we change our food preferences into consuming healthier foods.

The difference between Taste and Flavour

Well, if you are a “flavour literate,” then definitely you will be able to know the difference between taste and flavour. Flavour literate means if you are a chef, flavourist, supertasters, flavour manufacturers, who develop natural/nature-identical/artificial flavouring agents or anyone related to food & beverages industry. For rest, we would try to simplify this difference, so that you yourself can get an idea. 

When we say taste, we are referring to the inside of our mouth, especially tongue. Taste is just one amongst many other senses that help us to identify the flavour. We can taste only through the inside of our mouth and tongue. Our tongue consists of approximately 25 types of receptors to help identify various numbers of chemicals. Tastebuds are one of those receptors that are scattered around the tongue in large numbers. Tongue can differential between the 5 basic tastes, such as salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami. When we eat something, these tastebuds allow the food molecules to enter the pores contained in it. Once the food molecules enter these pores, they work their way into a specialized set of cells. These are the cells which we call taste senses. The factors influencing taste perception can be biological (age/genetics/gender), social (culture), psychological (packaging or appearance). 

For flavour, its a combination of taste, plus the aroma of food or drinks. Aroma is just another word for odour, which we detect through our nose. In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that 80% of the flavours that we taste comes from what we smell. Flavour can be defined as a comprehensive impression of the food we eat, its taste, texture, temperature and aroma. An assessment is done by the brain, which then combines the taste, texture and aroma of the food and this mouthfeel experience is called flavour. The factors influencing the flavour can be perceptual (expectations that are based on past food experiences on how a particular food or drink should taste), colour intensity (a slight change in the colour of a food can dramatically change the expectation and perception) and texture (it’s felt in the mouth such as smooth, crunchy, crispy). 

Taste and flavour is a unique combination and can simultaneously influence how people experience their food. Also, our thoughts and memories play an equal part when it comes to experiencing flavours. There’s no second thought that we judge the food by its flavour and not just the taste. In fact, for most people, the flavour is the prime reason for selecting a particular food. Secondly, the perception regarding any food comes first by its aroma and delight accompanied by taste.