Evaluation of Crunchy and Dried Food Products Using Fractal Analysis of Acoustic Parameters
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Abstract
This study investigates the applicability of fractal analysis to acoustic signals generated during the fracturing of dry and crunchy food products, with the aim of supporting the quantitative characterization of textural properties. The fractal dimension and scaling exponents obtained from the fractal analysis of the sound impulses produced during the mastication of three categories of food products (caraway breadsticks, Mediterranean pretzels, roasted almonds) serve as particularly useful fractal indicators for assessing food quality, providing an objective alternative to conventional methods. The results obtained for the fractal dimension using the Higuchi method (DH), with values between 0.9776–0.9949, or for the fractal exponent β, with values of 0.7581 for breadsticks, 0.3754 for pretzels, and 0.1146 for almonds, highlight a notable correlation between the fractal complexity of the acoustic signal and the sensory perception of crispness, corroborated through auditory and instrumental experiments. The experimental results indicate consistent relationships between specific fractal descriptors and perceived textural attributes, particularly crunchiness. While certain fractal measures exhibit limited variability across products, others - such as DFA and spectral slope - show greater sensitivity to structural differences. These findings suggest that fractal analysis of food-related acoustic signals can provide complementary quantitative information to conventional sensory and instrumental evaluations, within controlled experimental conditions.
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