The appearance of a food includes its size, shape, color, structure, transparency or turbidity, dullness or gloss and degree of wholesomeness or damage. Appearance includes all visible attributes and derives from the interactions between a substance or object and its environment as perceived by the human observer.
While selecting a food and judging its quality, a consumer takes these factors into account as they are indeed an index of quality.
Surface characteristics of food products contribute to the appearance. Appearance often has become the customer’s only consideration when evaluating the quality of meat. Consumers look for color and fluid retaining characteristics in the hope that these will indicate the potential eating quality.
The most important qualities for meat appear to be color, freshness, visible fat price and presentation. Quality perception increases with attractive appearance and freshness and decreases with amounts of visible fat.
Appearance combines the visual information contained in reflected, transmitted and scattered light, and the color of that light.
The color of a fruit indicates how ripe it is, and color is also an indication of strength as in tea or coffee, degree of cooking, freshness or spoilage.
Interior appearance can also be evaluated. Lumps in a pudding or gravy which are not desirable can be judge by the eye.
Food appearance related to quality
