AN EDIBLE TEST
It’s the lunch hour, and six men and women sit before empty Styrofoam plates. Directly in front of them are small gray doors that open to a test kitchen in the west wing of Grover Center.
“We’re going to do some fun stuff with chicken today,” says Ohio University food scientist Rob Brannan.
“You said no more chicken!” says one of the women, a participant on Brannan’s food sensory panel.
Indeed, Brannan starts off the day with a non-poultry test. His assistant, graduate student Eunice Mah, opens the gray doors and pushes through three small clear plastic cups. Each contains a dark, carbonated beverage. Brannan asks the panelists to taste the samples and determine which one is different.
The first sip suggests a popular brand of cola. The next two are even sweeter. Most panelists agree.
Brannan reveals that he’s just put them through his version of the “Pepsi challenge” – that first sample was rival Coke. “This is just a test to keep your senses sharp,” he says. “Now we go back to chicken.”
So starts the latest round of Brannan’s sensory tests, which are designed to elicit descriptive analyses of new food products. Brannan is particularly interested in testing the viability of adding antioxidants to foods to increase their shelf life and nutritional profile.
The scientist now is conducting those tests in Grover Center’s new Sensory Analysis Lab, which was funded by the College of Health and Human Services for research and teaching. The lab, which features six tasting booths, joins two existing facilities: the Food Science Research Lab, where Brannan conducts chemical analyses of food, and the Test Kitchen, where he prepares food samples and analyzes qualities such as color and texture.
Brannan has had a long career with food. He’s worked as a chef and a food scientist in the meat industry and now is in his third year as an assistant professor of human and consumer sciences. He’s the sole food scientist on the faculty, and teaches courses to students in the school’s dietetics and nutrition, restaurant/hotel and tourism, and human and consumer science programs.
A year ago, Brannan assembled the six-person food sensory panel to develop descriptive measures of new foods. That’s different from an untrained consumer taste test panel, he explains, which is only concerned with whether a food tastes good to the average person.
Brannan asks the highly trained food sensory panel to rate each sample of chicken on a very detailed list of qualities – from “sweet” and “sour” to “metallic” and “brothy.”
“We’re basically a human instrument to determine the saltiness, the juiciness of food,” says Jody Grenert, director of communications for the College of Health and Human Services and one of the panelists. “When you take a bite, you need to think of the food’s level of saltiness and sweetness, how hard it is to bite into, how much juice comes out and how much of a chicken taste it has or not.”
The latter might seem like a strange question when the contest is chicken vs. chicken, but that day’s exercise illustrates the point. Brannan and Mah offer the panelists two samples – a canned chunk and one fresh boiled piece. The first bite of chicken is very salty, sweet juicy, and yes, very chicken brothy. The second is much plainer, with a more predominant fleshy taste.
The panelists chew thoughtfully. “Eeeww,” someone says quietly, and light laughter erupts. Brannan asks for feedback. The canned has intense flavors, many agree, while the boiled tastes “serumy,” one panelist offers.
What the panelists don’t pick up on is the secret ingredient Brannan has added to the chicken: grape seed extract. A byproduct of the winemaking process, grape seeds are chock full of healthy antioxidants that sweep away free radicals in the body. According to Brannan’s own studies on the subject, adding the extract to chicken would not only boost its nutritional value, but would also help keep the food from going rancid as quickly, he says. Now he’s testing whether consumers will accept the addition. Later, he’ll conduct more tests on how the product breaks down in the body.
The panelists also have tested fried chicken patties with a milk protein in the breading that prohibits too much oil from being absorbed in the cooking process. “For years, people in the food industry have tried to reduce fat in fried products without reducing their crispy, crunchy qualities,” Brannan explains.
Adding the protein reduced the fat and calories of the meal and didn’t change the flavor or texture of the patties, says the scientist, whose work was funded by the National Dairy Board.
When asked what connection Brannan’s academic studies have to the commercial food industry, the scientist explains that his work might suggest new food production techniques for corporations to test on a larger scale.
But the sensory lab isn’t just about research – it will play a key role in his food science courses as well. In several classes that Brannan offers, the scientist challenges his undergraduate and graduate students to conduct experiments on making a healthier pastry or a new beverage with some of the food industry’s trendier flavor combinations (such as tangerine and thyme, lavender and honey).
And it’s not just a classroom exercise. Brannan’s class worked with the owner of an Ohio food manufacturing company – also an alumna of the College of Health and Human Services – to make a healthier, energy-bar style muffin for one of her clients.
As those classes resume this month, Brannan hopes to publish his research findings from the food sensory panel. And he’ll continue to call on their sensitive taste buds for more nutrition studies this year. One of his graduate students plans to conduct tests on dates, which are an important part of the diet in his native Saudi Arabia.
For at least one panelist, it will be a welcome break from the chicken.
-- Article by Andrea Gibson, Ohio University Research Communications Office, January 2008