Rehydration of Crispy Cereal Products: A Tentative Explanation of Texture Changes

International audienceCrispness has been seen to be a source of pleasant textural contrasts and to be associated with a sensation of both freshness and quality. The texture deterioration of crispy products upon rehydration is thus known to cause the rejection of many cereal products by consumers. For many years, this evolution of texture was attributed to the glass transition of the material becoming lower than ambient temperature. For this work, a double approach of the texture evolution was chosen: on the one hand, sensory properties of cereal products at various hydrations were studied, while on the other hand, the physical basis of the phenomena controlling the texture were considered. Crispness loss was shown to coincide with a hardness increase of the products. Localized motions preceding the glass transition could be responsible for the texture changes, moreover, sugars could contribute to the stability of the products versus hydration