Chapter 8: Food Structure Development for Rheological/Tribological Performance

This chapter discusses structural levers for control of viscosity, yield stress, and fat lubrication as well as providing relevant theory to measure and interpret rheology and tribology. Rheology and tribology are complementary tools, which, when used in conjunction with sensory evaluation and structure characterization techniques, such as particle size distribution and confocal microscopy, are critical in developing structure-property-oral process relationships for foods. We discuss recent work regarding the relationships among product structure, tribology, rheology, and sensory perception and potential mechanisms underpinning this relationship. There is significant room for development in this field toward understanding the mechanisms for the observed instrumental and sensory characteristics and the relationship between the two. Further work is required to develop fundamental or reference studies using simple model systems to elucidate the influence of structural components and interfacial interactions between food components and oral surfaces especially in the presence of saliva.