3. Oral perception of lipids in humans

Although human studies are still few and far between, recent psycho-physical data from Richard Mattes and his colleagues in the Food and Nutrition Department at Purdue University (USA) suggest that there is also a gustatory dimension to the orosensory perception of lipids in this species. Indeed, healthy adult subjects are able to specifically perceive VLCFAs, whatever their degree of saturation. As the protocol used minimized olfactory and somatosensory influences (texture, pungency), this perception was attributed to gustation. . It is interesting to note that the detection threshold of VLCFAs in this experiment is very low (0.028% w/v on average) compared to that of oils (5.6 and 17.3% w/v on average in young and elderly subjects, respectively) . VLCFAs therefore appear...