Artificial mouth to help tailor soft food developments

With a rising world population and ageing demographics, one of the challenges for the food industry is to be able to offer innovative products meeting the needs of people suffering from age-related pathologies, such as sarcopenia or problems with salivation or swallowing.

Current in vitro models do not always accurately reproduce the anatomy of the mouth or tongue movements and are therefore of limited help when developing food tailored to the specific needs of different populations.

In this context, researchers from INRAE and their Japanese counterparts at Fujita Health University have collaborated to design an artificial mouth with a tongue that can be programmed to simulate the contractions and movements observed in vivo. The tongue is made from a silicone designed to reproduce the elasticity, wettability and roughness of the human tongue. It includes three cavities that can be inflated and deflated by compressed air to accurately reproduce the movements observed in humans via ultrasound imaging.

The technology was tested with three commercially available soft foods: a cream dessert, a chocolate mousse and a chocolate fondant. The food boli obtained with the artificial mouth were very similar to the in vivo data collected on healthy participants, in terms of firmness, adhesive and cohesive properties and viscosity.

Image credit: INRAE – Nicolas Bertrand

The device can be used for studying the dynamics of food oral processing, and researchers have already begun work to include mastication in subsequent designs.

Top image credit: iStock.com/pilipphoto