Emerging Approaches and Technologies Linking Food Structure to Food Quality

Dear Colleagues,

There is a wide consensus that food structure and food texture are the two key concepts that must be targeted at the manufacturing of high-quality foods. Food texture studies in recent decades have led to some major achievements in four main topics.

The first topic of major achievement is the fundamental mechanical/rheological principles governing food texture. The texture of a food originates from the complex interactions among food constituents which extend from the molecular level to the microstructure and macroscopic level. The continuously growing research activities on the physical nature of food texture have been driven by the need for a fundamental understanding of human sensory perception toward food, in which food physics, physiology, and psychology have been the most active fields of interest.

The second topic of major achievements is quantitative and semiquantitative methods for the characterization of texture properties for solid, semi-solid, semi-liquid. and liquid food materials under the perspective of both quality control and consumer preference forecast.

The third topic is texture modification intended for functional and healthy purposes. For instance, the use of functional ingredients in food formulations and the application of emerging processing technologies are considered two key promising approaches both to achieve oral-comfort and safe-to-swallow texture properties in dysphagia-oriented foods as well as to enhance the extractability/bioavailability of health-promoting substances from fruits and vegetables.

The fourth topic of interest is the creation of artistic and expressive food textures to provide new sensory pleasure and healthy experiences for consumers. Beyond mere nourishment, food offers a rich multimodal sensory experience that can deeply affect consumers’ affective response, emotions, and memory. Four emerging approaches in such texture research are 3D printing technology, molecular gastronomy, gastrophysics, and neuroscience.

The aim of this Special Issue is to encourage and gather results from multidisciplinary research linking food structure and rheology to food texture, functionality, healthy, and pleasure through the use of functional ingredients as well as the application of emerging technologies for texture modification and for the design of new textures.

We invite the submission of original research papers, review articles, communications, and systematic reviews on the following three areas and topics of interest:

• Food Texture
  • Fundamental physics gathering food structure, rheology, and texture;
  • Food texture through emerging technologies;
  • Texture stability for shelf-life studies;
• Functional and Healthy Food Texture
  • Food texture for safe oral processing;
  • Food structure for functional and healthy foods;
• Sensorial Texture and Affective Response
  • Food texture and cross-modal sensory experiences;
  • Cross-modal sensory experiences from virtual-reality-based texture;
  • Food texture and neuroscience-based response.

Prof. Dr. Pasquale Massimiliano Falcone
Prof. Dr. Deborah Pacetti
Prof. Dr. Luisa Torri
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• texture profile analysis
• food rheology
• psychorheology
• dysphagia-oriented foods
• functional and healthy food texture
• 3D-printed food texture
• virtual reality in sensory texture
• consumers’ affective response