Texture evaluation by uniaxial compression of some snack foods.

Three ready-to-eat snack foods (deep-fat fried batter drops made from thick chickpea flour (meal) batter, extruded corn balls and puffed rice), were subjected to uniaxial compression at 4 different compression speeds of 0.01, 0.1, 1.0 and 10.0 mm/s to obtain max. force, fracture strain, slope of the force-deformation curve (instrumental firmness) and the number of major and minor peaks during compression. Instrumental firmness was dependent on the compression speed and was correlated (r = 0.656, P <less than or equal to> 0.001) with sensory firmness values. Fracture strain, max. force and number of peaks increased with compression speed. Principal component analysis indicated that the low compression speed of 0.1 or 0.01 mm/s would be appropriate for testing crisp snack foods to have a detailed fractural behaviour.