Newses & Articles

The Chemical Signatures of Smell
Publish Date : 1395/5/23 Time 14:37:10

health

The Chemical Signatures of Smell

What gives certain foods their unmistakable smell, and how does this affect our perception of flavors? Scientists are digging deeper to understand our nose’s ability to identify scent.

Sniffing Out Answers
Through our past flavorfacts articles, we have come to know the importance of smell in tasting flavor.  But until now, we haven’t focused on how our body detects odor and the implications of this understanding.

A recent article in Food Navigator summarizes a report from Angewandte Chemie, which highlights the research of TUM and DFA on odorant patterns of 227 different foods.  The research team was surprised to find that of the thousands of volatile chemicals found in a different food item, only 230 key odorants play a role in our ability to smell that foodstuff.

Furthermore, the study explained that each foodstuff has its own “odor code,” which is comprised of three to 40 of the 230 key odorants.  This core group of odorous substances help to create the strong scents we pick up on when cutting an onion or peeling a banana, for example.

Complex Understanding
While some food items only contain three key molecules, such as cultured butter, others have more complex chemical signatures, such as strawberries, which have 12.  Professor Peter Schieberle noted that the most complex of the items tested was Cognac, whose smell is attributable to 36 key molecules.

Photo courtesy of Men’s Health.

With a better understanding of how we recognize odor, we can apply these learnings to the creation process of flavors and fragrances, and the food industry as a whole. The DFA researchers added, “This perspective gives insight into nature’s chemical signatures of smell, provides the chemical odor codes of more than 220 food samples, and beyond addresses industrial implications for producing recombinants that fully reconstruct the natural odor signatures for use in flavors and fragrances.”

By mapping the odor codes of food items, we can gain knowledge of a food’s “blueprint” and use this for biotechnology applications.  This can be useful to breeders who are focused on meeting consumer desires for tastier and appealing flavors.

What do you think? Do studies like these shine a light of optimism for the food and flavor industry? What studies do you think would help advance our understanding in ways of bettering the marketplace?

The Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States (FEMA) was founded in 1909 and is the national association of the U.S. flavor industry.  FEMA’s membership is comprised of flavor manufacturers, flavor users, flavor ingredient suppliers, and others with an interest in the U.S. flavor industry.  The association is committed to ensuring a safe supply of flavor ingredients used in foods and beverages enjoyed by billions of men, women, and children around the world.