Flavor Release: A Rationale for Its Study

Release of flavor compounds from foods is an essential pre-requisite for flavor perception. Although measurement of release at equilibrium has been practiced for many years, measuring the dynamics of release was a more difficult task, due to the speed of change and the low concentrations of flavor compounds. However, sensory techniques like time-intensity analysis showed there were perceptible changes in flavor during, and after, eating. More recently, instrumental methods have been developed to follow the change in concentrations of flavor compounds above foods, or in the mouth and nose, during consumption of food. The availability of these techniques has led to renewed interest in the fields of modeling of flavor release, in the link between flavor compounds and flavor perception, and in the interactions of flavor compounds with food matrices.