Institute AffairsCours en technologie alimentaire

Pour la cinquieme annee consecutive la section de Montrealde nCSTA presenta avec succes un mini-cours en technologiealimentaire. Soixante et une personnes participerent a ce coursde trois jours tenu en collaboration avec l'Institut de TechnologieAgricole de St-Ryacinthe, Quebec en Novembre 1972.

Cette annee le theme du cours etait "La technologie et ledeveloppement de nouveaux produits." Le sujet a ete bien appre­cie des participants. Le sujet fut traite par des experts Univer­sitaires, Gouvernementaux et Industriels. Une visite industrielleaux Aliments Flamingo de Ste-Rosalie faisait aussi parti duprogramme.

EducationDe plus en plus de cours en alimentation, en boucherie et

en nutrition pratique se donnent dans les ecoles du Quebec auniveau secondaire et au niveau du recyclage des adultes. Cescaurs comprennent souvent des visites industrielles et des projetsde recherches pratiques au niveau du Consommateur.

Il est de plus en plus evident que nos technologues ont aparticiper dans ce relevement general pratique de l'educationalimentaire du public.

La contestation si populaire de nos jours a amene de nom­breuses personnes non qualifiees en alimentation a se prononcercategoriquement sur les bienfaits et les deboires de notre alimen­tation moderne. Ceci eut au debut un effet nefaste sur la popula­tion en general mais elle a aussi amene nos ecoles et nos technolo­gues a prendre leurs propres responsabilites. C'est ce quicommence maintenant a percer ici et la au Quebec.

ACFASPour la premiere fois un scientiste en alimentation, Armand

Belanger, a ete invite a faire parti a titre de membre de lacommission scientifique de l'ACFAS, l'Association CanadienneFran<;aise pour 1'Avancement des Sciences, une des plus vieillesAssociations Sdentifiques au Canada et une tres importante auCanada fran<;ais.

Cette commission scientifique est presentement ·a etudier lerapport BONNEAU-CORRY sur 1'administration des Universitesau Canada principalement en ce qui concerne la RechercheUniversitaire.

ASTM Committee Developing Languageof Odors and Tastes

A language of odors and tastes is being developed by Com­mittee E-18 on Sensory Evaluation of Materials and Productsof the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM),Philadelphia, Pa. Members of E-18's Subcommittee on Subjective­Objective Correlations are trying to reflect human psychologicalresponses to physical stimuli with numbers.

Exact measurements of odors and tastes are needed by theFederal, state, and local pollution control agencies, food productmanufacturers, oil refineries, chemical processing plants, theperfume industry, cosmetic manufacturers. In fact, anyone whoproduces a product, or a by-product, that ultimately reaches thetongues and noses of human beings should be interested in exactmeasurements.

"In a world where odors and tastes are so important to thequality of life, we need methods for measuring the intensity ofthose reactions," recently explained Dr. Roward Moskowitz, ofthe U.S. Army Natick Laboratories, Natick, Mass. "You canmeasure noise with a sound meter, light with a photometer, andlength with a ruler, but the only way to measure a taste or anodor is with a human nose."

As its title suggests, the subcommittee on subjective-objectivecorrelations is attempting to relate the physical wo.rJd to the psy­chological one. To accomplish this difficult task, the group iscomposed of psychologists, food scientists, representatives of thefragrance and cosmetics industry, as well as pollution control

Can. Inst. Food SeL Teehnol. J. Vol. 6. No. 2. 1973

Affaires de l'lnstitutofficials. Dr. Moskowitz, a psychophysicist and sensory psy­chologist, is chairman of the ASTM activity.

One of the task groups within the subcommittee is com­piling a comprehensive list of odor thresholds, the level of con­centration at which the average human is able to detect any odor."Research in odor detection has been going on for about 100years," Dr. Moskowitz pointed out. "Partial lists have beenpublished, but as yet there is no single, comprehensive, andreliable list of threshold values." There are literally tens ofthousands of chemical compounds which elicit olfactory sensationsat various concentrations. According to Dr. Moskowitz, Dr.William Stahl, of the McCormick Co., who is the head of thethreshold odor project, is responsible for much of the impetus forthe work that the entire subcommittee is now responding to.

A second working group of the subcommittee on subjective­objective correlation is taking the work on threshold measure­ment one step farther. Guided by Dr. Andrew Dravnieks, aninternationally recognized expert in the field of sensory measure­ment of odors, this group is studying means of measuring thesupra-threshold intensity of odors; that is, measuring the intensityof odors within the range in which humans can discern differences.

"Sensory impressions are ephemeral, vanishing, here nowthen gone. You can't touch them," Dr. Moskowitz explained."You can't feel the smell of newmown hay; you can't put a rulerto it; you don't have a meter that's labeled the 'newmown haymeter.' Right?"

"Wrong!" he continued, "We do have a newmown hay meter,although it's not labeled such. It's the human being himself. Tolearn how to measure the human response, and to teach him howto communicate the intensity of his own responses are the ob­jectives of Dr. Dravnieks group."

Knowing what 'chemicals combine to create odors and tastesis not enough to. identify and predict odors. A single combinationof chemicals may elicit many dozens of descriptive responsesfrom as many people sniffing that combination. A third taskgroup with the subcommittee on subjective-objective correlationsis seeking to develop a "language" of odors and tastes. "If youlook at your own behavior in naming odors, you can see that weare sometimes at a loss for proper descriptors," Dr. Moskowitzsaid. "You know that you have smelled a certain odor before, butyou don't have the appropriate language. One orange can smelldifferent than another orange, too, so simply saying that some­thing smells like an orange isn't quite enough. We are trying tofind out if there are dusters of descriptive odor words that wemight be able to ,group into a kind of thesaurus of odors. Thiswould be a great benefit, because presently, people involved inodor and taste research in different areas often find that theyhave no common language of odor to converse iri."

The task group on odor descriptors is attempting to collectall of the descriptive words and reduce them into a manageableset, with major odor headings (hay-orange-vanilla); subclasses(newmown hay-fragrant vanilla); and information on chemicalmake-up. Dr. Moskowitz is directly involved in both the lan­guage of odors and supra-threshold intensity standards research.

"This type of research is going to require considerable ad­vances in psychophysical measurement before we see the finalresults," Dr. Moskowitz stated.

"Taste research is not so difficult," he pointed out. "Odorintensity and odor classification are the two biggest problems weare facing. Once we have cracked these nuts - and we will ­we will have opened up a whole new world of odor researchpossibilities. There will be no limit to odor research once we havethese reliable standard means of measuring olfactory response."

Persons interested in the field of odor and taste responseresearch should contact: Dr. Roward Moskowitz, U.S. ArmyNatick Laboratories, Natick, Mass.; or Dr. Andrew Dravnieks,Director, Odor Science Research Center, Illinois Institute ofTechnology, Chicago, Ill.

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