Misconception of the month
Retaining the taste while reducing the amount of fat, is simply a matter of adding more aroma
Fact: Reducing the amount of fat means sometimes adding móre of a flavour compound, sometimes adding léss of a flavour compound, depending on the dissolving characteristics of this flavour compound.
‘Fats as the carrier of taste ’ - many people will think here immediately of the few drops of olive oil mixed in a salad or the small amount of cream added to a soup. Fats are indeed important for the way in which the taste of a product is perceived, whether the fats are visible or invisible. It is then logical that reducing the amount of fat or changing the fatty acid composition has consequences for the taste. This applies both to the ‘own’ taste of a product as well as to the taste that is based on added flavouring. Because of the complexity of taste it is not easy to put forward general rules for how to develop a product with a different fatty acid composition while maintaining the taste. For the optimum result it will mostly be necessary to find custommade solutions.
Consider a product that consists of 20% water and 80% oil. There is a certain quantity of flavouring in this product and the consumer is used to this particular taste and its strength. A ‘light’ variant of this product may consist of 80% water and 20% oil. Using the same flavouring in the same quantity will result in this product having a very different taste. Flavourings generally consist of a complex mixture of flavour compounds. Many of these flavour compounds dissolve better in oil than in water. If you lower the fat content there is less of such a flavouring required to keep the taste the same. You might actually expect exactly the reverse to be the case.
But the reverse is true in the case of a flavour compound from the particular flavouring dissolving better in water than in oil. Then there actually will be more of that flavour compound necessary if the fat content is reduced. So if the fat content is reduced it is necessary to alter the composition of the flavouring in order to retain the same taste because of a change of the nature of the emulsion.
The composition of the product is also of real importance when improving the fatty acid composition. If liquid fats (oils, unsaturated fatty acids) are added to a product at the cost of solid fats (saturated fatty acids) the flavour compounds dissolve better in the whole product so that the concentration drops. This means that it is necessary to add more flavouring in order to compensate for this drop.
More information about this topic can be read at Fats in the composition of taste.
