Association between chewing efficiency and mastication patterns for meat, and influence on tenderness perception

The aim of this study was to investigate whether individuals' chewing patterns were related to their chewing efficiency, and influenced their perceptions of meat tenderness. Chewing efficiency was measured using two methods. Subjects continuously assessed the tenderness of a range of samples throughout the chewing sequence using rime Intensity. At the same time electromgographs (EMGs) were recorded from their masticatory muscles. Subjects were subdivided into four groups with respect to their chewing efficiencies with the two methods. These subgroups differed significantly in the number of chews, total chewing time and chew work, both for the initial chews and the complete chewing sequence, for the meat samples. No significant difference was found in the dentition between the groups. Significant differences were found between the groups in their temporal perceptions of tenderness. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd