Olive oil has unique organoleptic attributes and its consumption is associated with nutritional and health benefits, which are mainly related to its rich composition in phenolic and volatile compounds. The use of olive oil in heat-induced cooking leads to deep reduction of phenolic and volatile concentrations and to changes of the sensory profiles. This work confirmed that oven and microwave heating significantly reduced total phenolic contents (P value < 0.0001, one-way ANOVA), more pronounced in the latter, together with a significant reduction of the intensity of fruity, sweet, bitter, pungent, and green attributes (P value < 0.0001, Kruskal-Wallis test), particularly for fruity and green sensations. Besides, bitter, fruity, green, and pungent intensities showed a linear dependency with the total phenolic contents (0.8075≤R-Pearson ≤ 0.9694). Finally, the potentiometric electronic tongue together with linear discriminant analysis-simulated annealing algorithm allowed satisfactory discrimination (sensitivities of 94±4%, for repeated K-fold cross-validation) of olive oils subjected to intense microwave heating (5–10 min, 160–205°C) from those processed under usual cooking conditions (oven heating during 15–60 min or microwave heating during 1.5–3 min, 72–165°C). This could be due to the different responses of the electronic tongue towards olive oils with diverse phenolic and sensory profiles.
Sensory intensity assessment of olive oils using an electronic tongue
