Perceptual attributes of poultry and other meat products: a repertory grid application.

Increased demand for processed poultry products through the growth of home meal replacements and ready to eat products, present an opportunity for the development of new value-added poultry products. Repertory grid interviews were conducted to generate insight into consumer driven product development of these products. Procrustes analysis revealed that healthiness, nutrition, convenience, and processing attributes were most important parameters for discriminating amongst 24 meat and meat alternatives. "White meat", "healthier", "leaner", "good source of protein", "easy to cook" and "convenient", were found to positively influence consumer preferences for unprocessed chicken products, eggs and salmon while price did not appear to be important for differentiating the products. Traditional processed fish and poultry products, such as chicken nuggets, represented undesirable composition, processing and quality concerns. Identification of consumer attributes for discriminating poultry products among other meat alternatives can guide the development of competitive value-added poultry products.

Sensory evidence for olfactory receptors with opposite chiral selectivity.

Human odor responses to alpha-ionone enantiomers were measured by psycho-physical methods. Surprisingly, subjects' relative sensitivities for these enantiomers were found to diverge widely, some subjects being much more sensitive to (+) than to (-) and vice versa. In 63 subjects the (+)/(-) threshold concentration ratio varied over 4 orders of magnitude. Nine subjects with extreme (+)/(-) ratios were further tested several times over a 7-month period and retained stable ratios. These same nine subjects, when tested for threshold sensitivity to carvone enantiomers, showed (+)/(-) ratios that varied only in a narrow range and did not correlate with their ionone ratios. It is suggested that odor discrimination of alpha-ionone enantiomers involves at least two receptor types of opposite chiral selectivity and that their distribution varies independently in the human population.

Determination of odour affinities based on the dose-response relationships of the frog's electro-olfactogram.

Electro-olfactograms (EOG's) recorded from the frog's olfactory epithelium for 11 substances were used to calculate dissociation constants which in turn serve as an index for the affinity between odorant and receptor site. These constants were calculated with and without a correction for the odour partition between water and air. For a homologous series of 7 n-alcohols these values decrease up to 1-heptanol. The dose-response relationships were based on the peaks of the EOG's since the peak/plateau-ratio was concentration-dependent for some of the substances.