Nondestructive Imaging of Cellular Solid Foods

Foods with similar nutritional and chemical composition might have different structure and in turn differ in mechanical and sensory responses. Most of the cereal solid foods are considered as either brittle or ductile foams where the three-dimensional cellular microstructure can be imaged with noninvasive x-ray microtomography (XMT). Advanced image analysis technologies combined with XMT imaging provide quantitative information on structural parameters such as cell diameter, cell wall thickness, porosity, number of cells and cell size distribution. The structural information gained from XMT imaging can later on be related to composition, processing parameters, texture and finally sensory properties.