Clydesdale F M
Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 01003.
Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 1993;33(1):83-101. doi: 10.1080/10408399309527614.
From birth, nature teaches us to make judgements on our environment based in large measure on color. As such, it plays a key role in food choice by influencing taste thresholds, sweetness perception, food preference, pleasantness, and acceptability. Its role is elusive and difficult to quantify, however, which at times has placed color in a secondary role to the other sensory characteristics, a position not entirely consistent with the facts. Color, in a quantitative sense, has been shown to be able to replace sugar and still maintain sweetness perception in flavored foods. It interferes with judgments of flavor intensity and identification and in so doing has been shown to dramatically influence the pleasantness and acceptability of foods. Studies in the literature have used cross-sectional population panels to study these effects, but a recent investigation of color-sensory interactions in beverages has compared the response of a college age group with the response of a panel consisting of a more mature population. Interestingly, the older group showed significant differences from the college age group in their response to the effects of color on several sensory parameters as well as showing a direct correlation between beverage consumption and color. Color is often taken for granted, but this position must be reevaluated in view of such studies and the need to create more appealing foods for different segments of our society.
从出生起，大自然就教导我们在很大程度上根据颜色对周围环境做出判断。因此，颜色通过影响味觉阈值、甜味感知、食物偏好、愉悦感和可接受性，在食物选择中发挥着关键作用。然而，它的作用难以捉摸且难以量化，这有时使颜色在其他感官特征面前处于次要地位，而这一地位并不完全符合事实。从定量的角度来看，颜色已被证明能够替代糖分，并且在调味食品中仍能保持甜味感知。它会干扰对风味强度和识别的判断，进而显著影响食物的愉悦感和可接受性。文献中的研究使用了横断面人群小组来研究这些影响，但最近一项关于饮料中颜色与感官相互作用的调查，比较了大学生年龄组与由更成熟人群组成的小组的反应。有趣的是，年龄较大的组在对颜色对几个感官参数的影响的反应上，与大学生年龄组存在显著差异，并且在饮料消费与颜色之间呈现出直接相关性。颜色常常被视为理所当然，但鉴于此类研究以及为社会不同群体创造更具吸引力食物的需求，必须重新审视这一观点。
