SEAL STRENGTH is the ability to resist forces that can separate materials that have been sealed together.
It may be a flexible surface from a rigid surface or another flexible surface.
Seal strength tests are useful for a variety of products and can be performed on containers such as trays and packaging pouches as well as assessment of adhesive, cosmetic and medical products such as surgical pouches and sterile packaging.
Sunday dinner traditionally involves the family sitting around the roast in the centre of the table.
But if US scientists have their way, everyone may be sitting around a printer. The team at Cornell University's Computational Synthesis Lab (CCSL) are building a 3D food printer, as part of the bigger Fab@home project, which they hope one day will be as commonplace as the microwave oven or blender.
Just pop the raw food "inks" in the top, load the recipe – or 'FabApp' – and the machine would do the rest.
The American Institute of Baking (AIB) has a collection of procedures for testing the texture of common bakery products with a texture analyser.
Bakery products come in every imaginable type and shape, so meaningful textural comparisons must account for the different product geometries. The test procedures typically manage such differences in geometry by reducing the products’ size to a common denominator.
Generally, the objective of most of these tests is to measure the firmness and shelf life of a baked product; summaries of a few such methods are highlighted below.
The boom of 2 billion people over the last century has resulted in an ageing world population. By 2025, the world will have almost 800 million people over the age of 65.
About 556 million of them will be in developing countries, another 254 million in developed ones. In fact, the United Nations estimates that the global population age 60+ will soar from 11% in 2000 to 22% by 2050. While age is just a number, the numbers are certainly on the rise.
Yet another challenge is that sensory perceptions necessary for the palatability of food – sight, touch, smell, and taste – diminish as humans age. While taste is the most important factor for all consumers, texture of food products may be a greater concern for older consumers than younger ones because, according to Peter Halley at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, 40% of the elderly have trouble chewing and swallowing. The importance of food texture for the older adult is therefore paramount.
