Tribological method to measure lubricating properties of dairy products

Abstract

Tribology has a growing interest in oral texture and sensory research due to its ability to assess certain properties of the food during the complex oral processing that cannot be explained by its bulk texture and rheology. Developing a reliable, low cost and easy-to-use tribometer applicable to a wide variety of food products is still a big challenge to researchers. In this work, a simple method to measure lubricating properties (friction coefficient) of dairy products is presented using a newly introduced tribometer coupled with a widely used rheometer. Pasteurized milks (fat contents from 0.1% to 4.9%) and cream cheeses (fats content: 0.5%, 5.5%, 11.6%) were chosen as representative dairy..