According to the British “New Scientist†magazine report, French researchers have developed an artificial mouth that can chew apples like a human.
Artificial mouth reproduces chewing apple
It can be part of a mechanical tasting test set to improve food quality and our understanding of taste.
Earlier research teams have developed false mouths that break down soft foods or complete mechanical jaws to test teeth. But so far, no one can reproduce a person chewing hard food. Many of the tastes we taste are created by the release of volatile compounds in food. It bypasses the back of the mouth and goes up into the nose. Hard foods are based on whether they are crushed, cut, or chewed into juice to selectively release those compounds.
Keller-Avicenant of the National Institute of Agricultural and Food Technology Engineers (ENITIAA) in Nantes, France, said that if a mechanical system would "experience" the same taste that people taste while eating, the food Certainly experience the same changes in your mouth. She said: "The earlier model was relatively simple and did not consider the entire process of eating. This fake mouth allows us to study hard foods like chewing apples."
This chewing device mimics the first stage of digestion - chewing, releasing saliva, and breaking down food. This steel container is approximately five times the size of the person's mouth and uses a set of electronic components to maintain a constant temperature of 37 degrees Celsius. Its inner surface is coated with a chemical-resistant plastic for transplantation. The top and bottom of this cylindrical vessel are connected to a variable accelerator. The food is placed on a base that can be rotated, while the top is covered with pointed "tooth" that moves up and down like a piston.
This compression and rotation simulates the mechanical pressure experienced by the food in the mouth. This process becomes more realistic by adding false enzyme-containing saliva from a tube at the bottom of the container. The helium flowing through the other inlet flows through the "mouth" to imitate the effect of breathing and the volatile compounds are carried away for decomposition. In order to hone the chewing motion of the robotic mouth, the team feeds it with large apples and lets it chews at different speeds. Then they compared the final flesh with the chewed apple. Yavesenate said: "The results are very similar."