Food appearance

High quality foods have a good flavor, aroma, appearance, and texture. A high-quality food is one that has been produced under sanitary conditions, with the right ingredients, and with minimal processing. Typically, the term food quality represents the sum of all properties and attributes of a food item that are acceptable to the customer.

Food presentation or food appearance is an art of processing, organizing, and decorating a food in a dish that is served to increase visual appeal. Appearance is a compound of all the information about the product and its environment which reaches the eye.

During food storage, chemical, biochemical and physical deteriorative reactions can occur that cause changes in food color, appearance, texture, and flavor, significantly impacting the overall quality attributes and consumer acceptability of foods.

The appearance of a food is the process that offered to the guest who will enjoy food in a visually appealing way where it can have a significant impact on consumers while enjoying their food.

Appearance can be divided under three headings:
*Optical Properties: Optical properties are those material properties resulting from physical phenomena occurring when any form of light interacts with the material under consideration. These properties are color, gloss, translucency, the uniformity of these attributes over the surface of the product, and the appearance boundary condition “visual flavor.”

*Physical Form: Included are shape, size, irregularity of surface (including the presence of fibers and granularity), and gross “textural” or consistency properties (like fluidity, wobbliness). Food texture is an important sensory attribute as it affects the way food tastes and how it feels in the mouth.

*Mode of Presentation: This comprises such variables as lighting of the material, contrast phenomena, product name, wrap and price. Food presentation refers to the arrangement of food on the plate in a way that makes it appealing to the diner. A plate should engage diner’s senses and draw them into the experience as much as a painting in a gallery draws in the observer.
Food appearance