AgWired

How difficult could it be to figure out whether a piece of meat is tough or tender, dry or juicy, flavorful or not? A group of ag journalists found out this week as guests of Elanco Animal Health to a Sensory Evaluation Briefing at Iowa State University.

Basically, we all got a crash course in how to be “sensory panelists.” First, we had to learn just how our senses can fool us – like our sight filling in lines to make triangles in a picture when there are none!

Then, we had to learn how each one of our senses plays a role in how we “taste” a food. We were given a small cup covered in aluminum foil. First we shook it and gave it attributes based on the sound – like that it was small, in pieces, and dry. Then, we poked holes in the foil and gave it a sniff. It smelled salty, spicy and corny. When we looked inside, we evaluated the appearance by color and size – small, flat, kind of orange-red-yellowish. When we picked it up, it felt grainy and light. Last of all, we tasted it – and found out that most of the attributes we gave it – spicy, peppery, corny – were actually not tastes, but flavors. Big difference. By the way, it was some kind of Doritos.

Anyway, then we moved on to learning how to evaluate little bits of meat for tenderness and juiciness. Before doing everything we had to eat a bite of non-salted cracker and swish some water around in our mouths to cleanse our palates. When we ate each bite of meat, we had to use a toothpick and place it back between our molars.

The whole process took about an hour before we were considered “trained” – but real panelists take much longer to train. The Sensory Evaluation Unit has dozens of trained panelists they use to evaluate food products for all kinds of companies, including Elanco. The panelists actually get paid for their work, but they didn’t tell us how much!

When it comes to testing food, it’s all the senses that count, not just taste.

“That’s because there’s only about four things we can taste,” says Dr. Ken Prusa with Iowa State University. “Sweet, salty, sour and bitter.”

Which makes taste alone a pretty limited factor in the total experience of how we perceive a food. In fact, we use all of our senses when we judge whether we like or dislike food products.

Dr. Prusa is the professor-in-charge of the Sensory Evaluation Unit at ISU where a group of ag editors were trained to be “sensory panelists” during a workshop this week sponsored by Elanco Animal Health. We specifically learned to evaluate meat by tenderness, juiciness and flavor – more on that in the above post.

Listen to my interview with Dr. Prusa here:

Read more on the Beef Quality Center website.

Designing trials for a new animal health product to evaluate meat quality is expensive and complicated, according to Dr. Floyd McKeith with the University of Illinois Department of Animal Sciences. He was one of the speakers at a workshop for ag editors this week in Ames, Iowa sponsored by Elanco Animal Health.

According to Dr. McKeith, some of the factors to be considered when designing such a trial include breed type, geographic region, season, yearling versus calf-fed, time on feed, implant history, steers versus heifers, and the diet of the animals. “Ultimately, you want to understand how well that product will perform under a variety of conditions for a variety of producers,” he said.

McKeith says these trials cost companies like Elanco millions of dollars, but most often they go above and beyond what is necessary to make sure their product is safe and effective for the producers, the animals, and consumers.

Listen to my interview with Dr. McKeith here:

Read more on the Beef Quality Center website.