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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Quality and Safety Assessment Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #392663
Research Project: Assessment of Quality Attributes of Poultry Products, Grain, Seed, Nuts, and Feed

Location: Quality and Safety Assessment Research Unit

Title: Profiling commercial ready-to-eat chicken nuggets using traditional descriptive analysis and temporal dominance of sensations analysis

Author
item Zhuang, Hong
item Bowker, Brian
item Chatterjee, Debolina

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/23/2022
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Compared with traditional quantitative descriptive analysis (TQDA), temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) provides sensory perception of foods as they change throughout the eating event. In addition, TQDA describes the nature and the intensity of sensory properties from a single evaluation of a product, whereas TDS primarily identifies dominant sensory properties over time. The aim of this study was to compare the profile of chicken nugget samples from the TDS methodology to the one from the TQDA based on the evaluation by the same set of trained panelists. The panelists (n = 10 with minimum 60hr training) were provided with six ready-to-eat chicken nugget samples procured from local supermarkets. Sensory attributes included chewiness, hardness, saltiness, sweetness/sourness, springiness, cohesiveness, juiciness, and spiciness. The numerical intensity scale for each attribute ranged from 0 = none to 15 = very much, using a universal intensity scale (Spectrum method), for the TQDA. Results from the TQDA method revealed that, overall, the highest intensity perceived by the panel was saltiness (6.3-8.4), followed by springiness (5.6-6.6) and hardness (5.1-6.1). The attributes that showed the relative low intensity were juiciness (1.7-3.3) and sweetness (2.3-2.5). The intensity of attribute spiciness varied largely among the samples (2.3-10.0). Although saltiness was consistently significant dominance of sensation in all six samples, the TDS methodology revealed that juiciness was also a common dominant attribute (5 out of six samples). In the presence of spiciness, none of mechanical sensory attributes (including chewiness, hardness, springiness, and cohesiveness) was significantly dominant. These findings indicate that the TDS could provide a sensory profile of products different from a TQDA and that using both TQDA and TDS for sensory profiling could be more beneficial to understanding the sensory perception of a food product.