A saliva reactor to mimic in-vivo aroma release from flavoured ice-creams

The aim of the present study was to develop a saliva reactor allowing temperature control and the addition of human saliva in order to follow the release of five aroma compounds from different ice creams. The developed method was a useful tool to mimic the in-mouth process by taking into account sample quantity, mouth volume, temperature, salivary flux, and mastication. The reactor was fit with solid phase micro-extraction for gas chromatography allowing data collection similar to nose-space sam-pling. Different ice creams were assessed, with varying fat types and levels, and protein levels. The results showed that the effect of saliva is relatively low and only observed at the higher fat level. Also the effect of the fat type was smaller than that of the fat level. The ice cream with a low fat level released more hydrophobic aroma compounds than the one with a high fat level. The ice creams with both low fat level and low protein level, showed the highest release of aroma compounds. Less added proteins led to less interaction with the aroma compounds and increased their rate of release from the aqueous to the vapour phase. Overall, an innovative tool was provided to guide food industries to reformulate ice creams answering nutritional recommendations in line with consumer demands