RESUMO
Culture is a well-known driver of food choices, and therefore, it could also impact food pairing preferences. Food pairing has been studied from different approaches; however, little cross-cultural research has been done. This work explored food and beverage pairing using projective mapping (PM) to create maps of food-beverage combinations. Four countries (Mexico, Argentina, France, and Norway), thirty foods, and six beverages were selected. PM was carried out through an online study in each country. Participants were asked to map foods together with beverages following the instruction that foods and beverages closer together represented a good combination. The coordinates of each product were analyzed through Multiple Factorial Analyses (MFA) by countries. The first four factors of each MFA were used to perform RV coefficients to test similarities in food-beverage pairings between the countries. Finally, a k-means clustering was performed on the beverage coordinates of each MFA. PM provided maps representing food and beverage pairings for each country in which the proximity between food-beverages represented a good combination according to consumers. RV coefficients between countries were low, showing that food-beverage pairings were not similar across countries, evidencing the cultural effect in food-drink combinations. Results from the k-means clustering showed some similarities and differences between countries. In general, the food-beverage pairing was effectively explored with PM, from which several differences and similarities were found within cultures.
Assuntos
Bebidas , Comparação Transcultural , Preferências Alimentares , Humanos , Feminino , Adulto , Masculino , Noruega , México , França , Adulto Jovem , Argentina , Comportamento de Escolha , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Comportamento do Consumidor , Alimentos , AdolescenteRESUMO
A commercial drinkable yogurt with and without 4% of added trehalose (as cell protectant) was spray-dried obtaining a powder with low water activity (aw). Total bacterial count in the powder was between 8.48-8.90 log cfu/g. The dried yogurt was stored: (i) at 38 °C and aw = 0.33; (ii) at 38 °C in hermetically sealed flasks (aw = 0.21/0.22); (iii) in a cyclic temperature chamber (10-20 °C) in hermetically sealed flasks (aw = 0.21/0.22). Whole milk was then fermented by adding an inoculum of spray-dried yogurt after storage under these different conditions. The kinetics of acidification showed the presence of a lag time which was strongly dependent on storage conditions. The data was fitted with a logistic type equation from which the lag time was calculated. To evaluate structural differences among samples, Fourier Transform Infrared spectra (FTIR) were recorded. Partial Least Squares (PLS) models enabled a good correlation between lag time of fermentation and FTIR spectra. The lag time for yogurt powder stored at aw about 0.21/0.22 and cyclic temperature 10-20 °C remained approximately constant over the 12 weeks of storage, while all the other conditions resulted in a dramatic increase. The addition of trehalose had a small influence on lag time and, therefore, as a protectant of lactobacilli.