The Effect of Ensure Supplementation on the Texture, Color, and Flavor of Ice Cream.

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1 The Effect of Ensure Supplementation on the Texture, Color, and Flavor of Ice Cream. Kaylin Duncan Alicia Mezera 11/17/2008 1

2 Abstract: Chocolate ice cream was supplemented with different concentrations of Ensure added; 0 ml, 89 ml, or 177 ml. Three trials of ice cream were made. Each trial had subjective testing measured through a sensory panel of 10 people. The panel was composed of 10 different people for each trial. Objective measurements were taken for each trial via a texture analyzer using a cone shaped probe and a depth of 4 mm into the ice cream. A Hunter Colorimeter was used to determine the color variations among the different concentrations of Ensure supplemented ice cream. Statistical analysis using One-Way ANOVA revealed that all of the tests had p-values greater than 0.05, meaning there was not a significant difference among the different concentrations of Ensure supplemented ice cream. Because there was no significant difference of whether people liked or disliked the supplemented ice cream over non-supplemented ice cream, it can be inferred that the supplemented ice cream is very similar to regular ice cream in color, texture, taste, and firmness. Introduction: Elderly adults have a decrease in appetite. This may be due to depression, illness, or no longer a desire to eat (Donini and others 2003). As a result of consuming lower amounts of nutrients than the recommended amount, elderly people have weaker immune systems. "Nutritional factors play a major role in the immune responses of aged individuals," (Lesourd 1999). Elderly adults consume nutritional supplements to help them meet the vitamin and mineral requirements without increasing the level of food in their diets (Foot and others 2000). Research shows that nutritional treatment, such as vitamin supplementation has been effective in improving their immune responses, (Lesourd 1999). On top of appetite decreasing with age, there are several other factors that cause this population to not meet the recommended values for nutrients. Poor dentition could make it difficult to consume certain types of foods, therefore resulting in malnutrition. Even if they did consume the types of foods that contained the nutrients they need, there are factors that cause the body to be unable to absorb a sufficient amount of the nutrients. Some examples of these would be gastrointestinal disease and malabsorption syndromes (Donini and others 2003). Even though research has shown that some older adults do take nutritional supplements, this does not mean that they are receiving an adequate amount of all the nutrients. A study that was carried out to assess the dietary status of older Americans revealed that both men and women were not receiving enough of certain nutrients. For men, over 40% had intakes of vitamins A and E, calcium, and zinc below two-thirds the recommended dietary allowance. In the same sense, over 40% of women had intakes of vitamin E, calcium, and zinc that were below two-thirds the RDA 2

3 (Ryan and others 1992). For whatever reason that this population is not meeting the requirements for these important nutrients, measures need to be taken in order to improve their health. There are several reasons that an older adult would not take a vitamin supplement to improve their health. For example, since the majority of the elderly are on several prescription medications, they may not want to add another "pill" to their daily routine. Supplemented food items for the elderly, need to be created. This would give them another option that would in turn increase their nutrient intake. Supplemented ice cream might serve as a means to enjoy the treat and its nutritional benefits at the same time. As stated above, a physical factor that causes some elderly people to not consume certain types of foods is the issue with their dentures. The smooth texture of ice cream would not affect this issue, leaving them with the option to consume this food item. Adding Ensure to an ice cream recipe would add and enhance nutrients to the ice cream. One bottle of ensure (8 fl oz) contains 25% or more of the following nutrients: Vitamin A, C, D, E, K, all of the B vitamins, calcium, iron, phosphorus, iodine, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium, and molybdenum (Abbott 2008). To test if consumers find the supplemented ice cream to be comparable in quality to its original recipe, a subjective test with a sensory panel was conducted. The objective methods included using the Texture Analyzer and the Hunter Colorimeter which determined the differences in texture and color of each of the samples For this experiment the objective is to create a nutritionally delicious ice cream. This is mostly targeted for the elderly who have trouble getting the recommended dietary allowances for nutrients. The independent variable is the amount of Ensure added to the ice cream. Ensure will be added to replace 0%, 50%, and 100% of the evaporated milk. The dependent variables that will be measured are the texture, the brightness of color, and the preferred taste determined by a sensory panel. Methods: A subjective test with a sensory panel was conducted to test how consumers found the supplemented ice cream compared in quality to its original recipe. The panel rated each of the samples on an unstructured scale based on color, taste, texture, and overall quality. This determined which amount of Ensure resulted in the overall most appealing ice cream. The objective methods determined the differences in texture and color of each of the samples. The Texture Analyzer measured the force to penetrate the ice cream giving a direct texture measurement. This was done with the cone shaped probe set to a distance of 4mm into the ice cream. The Hunter Colorimeter measured the color of each sample based on lightness, red to green, and yellow to blue qualities. The L values obtained from the Hunter colorimeter defines the color in terms of black (L=0) and white (L=100). This means the lower the L value, the 3

4 darker the color of ice cream. The "a" values are a measure of red (a=100) to green (a=0). The b values are a measure of yellow (b=70) to blue (b=-80). This helped to conclude how the varying amounts of added Ensure affected the color of the ice cream. Subjective Test score sheet: Please rate the following samples on each scale by marking an X on the line where you feel most appropriate. Write the sample number above each X. Color: Most Appealing Least Appealing Texture: Most Creamy Least Creamy Taste Most Palatable Least Palatable Overall: Liked most Liked Least The ingredients include: 20 grams of Hershey's Unsweetened Chocolate Cocoa Powder grams of granulated sugar ml evaporated milk 236 ml whipping cream 2.5 ml real vanilla extract Making the ice cream: First, the cocoa powder and the sugar were mixed together until there were no lumps. Then the evaporated milk was added to the cocoa sugar powder. Next, the mixture was placed on a stove burner set at medium heat and then the mixture was stirred until all of the powder was dissolved into the milk. The mixture was then removed from the stove and placed into the refrigerator until it is approximately 23 C. The whipping cream and the vanilla extract was then added into the mixture and stirred until there were no chunks. To finish, the unfrozen chocolate ice cream was placed into the ice cream maker and churned for 30 min. Each batch produces approximately grams. This first batch did not contain any ensure. The second batch had 89 ml of evaporated milk and 89 ml of Ensure. The third batch had no evaporated milk and 177 ml of Ensure. After all three batches were made; the ice cream was placed in a freezer overnight, because ice cream with 89 ml and 177 ml of Ensure added stayed in liquid form 4

5 after being in the ice cream maker for 30 min. This allowed for the liquid to turn into a frozen solid form. Subjective Testing: About a tablespoon of ice cream was placed into 10 plastic custard cups for each concentration (10 for the control, 10 for the half Ensure and half evaporated milk, and 10 for all Ensure and no evaporated milk). Each cup was labeled in black marker with the assigned three digit number for its concentration; 252 for the control, 613 for the half Ensure half evaporated milk, and 428 for all Ensure and no evaporated milk. One cup from each of the three concentrations was used to form a triangular shape on top of a paper plate to eliminate the middle bias. The plates were then distributed to 10 random people. Each person was then given a plastic spoon and a score sheet. Those who sampled the ice cream filled out a score sheet that had four unstructured scales to rate the creaminess of the texture, flavor, color, and overall likeness of each sample. After the sensory panel was completed the ice cream was then placed back into the freezer for the night because it had softened. For the subjective testing, the sensory scorecards used an unstructured scale to measure color appeal, creamy texture, palatability of taste, and overall likeness. To analyze the individual scorecards, a scale was created with zero centimeters being the least of each category. The distance in centimeters where each person marked on the scale was recorded and averages were calculated. These averages of all three trials were used to create bar graphs to show the range of each quality. Objective Testing: Later, the objective measurements were taken. Texture was measured using a texture analyzer with a cone shaped probe set at a depth of 4 mm. The color was tested using the Hunter Colorimeter. Taste was measured using a sensory panel, shown above. It was planned to keep all of the ice cream at the same temperature to avoid unwanted variables, however due to lack of space the containers of ice cream were moved around to various freezers. This process was repeated three times resulting in three trials. Each trial had different people for the sensory panel. Calculations: The calculations for this lab included statistical analyses, such as the One-Way ANOVA test from the InStat program. The One-Way ANOVA test was used to determine the significant difference via a P-value. The standard deviation was found and shown on appropriate figures using Microsoft Excel. 5

6 Discussion: The goal for creating a supplemented ice cream was to help increase nutrient values in elderly people. A research experiment was conducted on elderly persons with normal serum vitamin levels. It was found that after vitamin supplementation, their response rate to the vitamins increased greatly. This helped show that vitamin deficiency in the elderly is common, even if it appears they have sufficient vitamin levels (Naurath and others 1995). By adding Ensure to a commonly enjoyed food item will give more options of how vitamins can be incorporated into the diet. Increasing vitamin intake will help to decrease vitamin deficiencies in the elderly. Since older individuals might have trouble eating certain foods, ice cream serves as a healthy alternative that is also easy to consume. The Texture Analyzer is a good way to indicate the firmness of the ice cream. This characteristic of the ice cream will have an effect on how easy or difficult it would be for an elderly person to scoop the ice cream from the container for consumption. Arthritis is a concern for certain elderly persons, so this is a factor that needs attention when formulating a food item for this group of people. The ice cream became firmer with the increasing amounts of Ensure in the recipe. One reason for this result could be due to the fact that the Ensure was used to replace the evaporated milk in the recipe. The Ensure itself was thicker than the evaporated milk, so when this froze it would be more firm as well. The Ensure was used to replace the evaporated milk. This means with increasing amounts of Ensure, the amount of the evaporated milk decreased. With the increasing amounts of Ensure, the results of the Texture Analyzer showed that the ice cream become more firm. Another reason for this result could be due to the added amounts of protein from the Ensure supplement. Each 8 fl oz (~237 ml) serving of Ensure contains 13 grams of protein (Abbott 2008). An experiment was done to test the firmness of a gel with varying milk proteins. The results of this showed that with increasing protein amounts, the gel became firmer (Modler 1983). The same result occurred during the experiment with varying Ensure amounts added to the ice cream recipe. The more Ensure that was added meant the more protein in the ice cream, which resulted in a firmer texture as shown by the results of the Texture Analyzer. It has been found that elderly persons who do not consume sufficient vitamins in their diet will suffer from a decrease in their immune system (Lesourd 686). In order to improve the health of these individuals, vitamin supplementation must be added into their diets. It can be assumed that as people age, they are going to be taking more medications for various problems that develop throughout their life. Since some elderly persons are taking several medications, adding in yet another pill might not be the best way to add vitamins into their diet. That is why food with equivalent nutrition should be added into their diet as a better alternative. However if the new food item is not of an appealing color, people would not consume it. The varying color of the different ice creams resulting from the amount of Ensure added was not significant according to the One-Way ANOVA test. However, the sensory panel noted color differences in the varying samples of ice cream. The visual but not significant color difference could be due to the fact that the Ensure used during this experiment was chocolate 6

7 flavored and dark brown. Ensure was added to ice cream that already had brown colored cocoa in it. The color white is used to lighten colors. Because white evaporated milk was taken out as Ensure was added in, this would help darken the color of the ice cream. At the conclusion of this experiment, it was found that there were a few factors that created room for error in obtaining the results. Due to issues regarding freezer space, the exact temperature that each ice cream was stored in from the three trials was not regulated. This could have caused discrepancies when using the Texture Analyzer, as a lower freezing temperature would create a firmer ice cream. The amount of time the ice cream was out of the freezer before the Texture Analyzer was run would also create differences in the force required to penetrate the ice cream. The Hunter Colorimeter results also have potential room for error. If an ice cream sample had frost bite on it, the L value might be affected. Also, if the ice cream sample used in the machine was not representative of the entire sample, this would give inaccurate results. Error could have occurred when the subjective sensory scorecards for the ice cream sample were analyzed. The amount of time the ice cream sample was out of the freezer before being tasted will have an effect on texture. In Trial 1, some the sensory panel was preoccupied trying other student s experimental samples, so their sample might have been more liquid than solid. This could cause a difference in the rating they gave the sample. For future work, there are some aspects that could be adjusted to benefit the experiment as a whole. Instead of adding chocolate flavored Ensure, as was done in this experiment, original flavor or vanilla flavor could be added instead. This would solve the issue of causing the higher concentrations of Ensure to be too rich in chocolate flavor for some people s liking. The color change as shown by the results of the Hunter Colorimeter turned out to be insignificant. The different colors caused by the chocolate Ensure is one factor that should be adjusted for future trials of this procedure. One factor that could have had an effect on the results of the Texture Analyzer was the temperature at which the ice cream was stored. One freezer should be used to store all of the ice cream from all three samples as well as each trial. Another related issue would be the amount of time the ice cream is out of the freezer before the Texture Analyzer is run. The temperature of the freezer and the time out of the freezer are two factors that need to be held consistent in order to give accurate results. A few other possible suggestions deal with how to adjust the recipe when adding the varying amounts of Ensure. This experiment replaced varying amounts of the evaporated milk with the Ensure. Other ways this could have been done is to take out varying amounts of the whipping cream and leaving the evaporated milk amount constant. One other way would be to keep the original recipe the same and then add varying amounts of Ensure to it. Because there was no significant difference of whether people liked or disliked the supplemented ice cream over non-supplemented ice cream, it can be inferred that the healthier ice cream is very similar to regular ice cream in color, texture, taste, and firmness and that consumers would purchase and eat the supplemented ice cream at about the same rate they would the regular ice cream. 7

8 Results: For this experiment, a Texture Analyzer, Hunter colorimeter, and a sensory panel were used to measure different qualities of the various Ensure concentrations used to make the ice cream. The Texture Analyzer measured force. As seen is Figure 1, the results from the Texture Analyzer showed that when 177 ml of Ensure were added it required the most force to penetrate. This means that this sample concentration was the most firm out of the three concentrations of Ensure being tested. The ice cream sample with no Ensure added required the least amount of force to penetrate. For a closer look at the data, refer to Table 1. The L values obtained from the Hunter colorimeter defines the color in terms of black (L=0) and white (L=100). This means the lower the L value, the darker the color of ice cream. The "a" values are a measure of red (a=100) to green (a=0). The b values are a measure of yellow (b=70) to blue (b=-80). As seen in Figure 2, the more Ensure was added, the lower the L, a, and b values, meaning the ice cream became an overall darker brown. Table 2 gives a more detailed result of the data. The results from the sensory panel are shown in Figures 3-6. The results of the sensory panel show that the darker color of when 177 ml of Ensure were added, was preferred out of the three samples. The control was like the least. The sample with 177 ml of Ensure added resulted to have the creamiest texture, while the control had the least. For the palatability, the control and the concentration that had 89 ml added were tied for having the most palatable taste, leaving the one with 177 ml added for the least palatable, but only by a difference of Overall the sensory panel reported that they liked the control the best and the sample with 177 ml of Ensure added the least. Refer to Table 3 form more specific values. The InStat program used a One-Way ANOVA to tell whether there is or is not a significant difference in the data. If the P-value is greater than 0.05, then the data is not significant. The P-value for color was , taste was 0.998, texture was 0.88, and for the overall category it was In all four subjective measures (color appeal, creamy texture, palatable taste, overall likeness), the data was not significant since the P-value was greater than Since the data was not significant, no further tests were done. 8

9 References: Abbott Laboratories. Ensure. Retrieved Sep 29, 2008, from < Donini, L. M., C. Savina, and C. Cannella Eating Habits and Appetite Control in the Elderly: The Anorexia of Aging. International Psychogeriatrics. 1(15): Foot, J.A., A. R. Giuliano, and R. B. Harris Older Adults Need Guidance to Meet Nutritional Recommendations. Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 19(5): Lesourd, B. and L. Mazari Nutrition and Immunity in the Elderly. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 3(58): McWhorter, E. Chocolate Ice Cream. My Home Cooking. Retrieved Sep 29, 2008, from < myhomecooking. net/ice-cream/chocolate-ice-cream-recipe.htm>. Modler HW, Larmond ME, Lin CS, and others Physical and Sensory Properties of Yogurt Stabilized with Milk Proteins. Journal of Dairy Science 66(3): Naurath HJ, Joosten E, Riezler R, and others Effects of vitamin B12, folate, and vitamin B6 supplements in elderly people with normal serum vitamin concentrations. Lancet 346(8967): Ryan, A. S., L.D. Craig, and S. C. Finn Nutrient Intakes and Dietary Patterns of Older Americans: A National Study. J-Gerontol. 47(5):

10 Table 1: Averages from Hunter Colorimeter Measurements Ensure added (ml) L a b Table 2: Averages from Texture Analyzer Measurements Ensure added (ml) Trial 1 (N) Trial 2 (N) Trial 3 (N) n/a Averages (N) Table 3: Averages of Sensory Scorecards Color Texture Taste Overall Ensure (ml) Trial Trial Trial Overall Average

11 Figure 1. Compares the amount of Ensure added to each sample of ice cream to how much force it took for the texture analyzer to pierce the ice cream to a depth of 4 mm using a cone shaped probed. Averages of all three trials and standard errors are shown. Figure 2. This is a comparison of the different color values among the varying concentrations of Ensure. Averages of all three trials and standard errors are shown. 11

12 Figure 3. This is a comparison of the preference of color in a distance of likeness for the averages of all three trials. Standard errors are shown. Figure 4. A comparison of the preference for creamy texture is shown. This was measured by a distance of likeness for the averages of all three trials. The standard errors for the averages of all three trials are also shown. 12

13 Figure 5. The preference of palatability is compared among the averages of all three trials. The distance of likeness is graphed and the standard errors are shown as well. Figure 6. This is a comparison of the overall likeness for the average of all three trials. The standard errors are also shown. 13

The effect of adding different amounts of Avocado on Ice Cream. Maria Holland F&N 453 Individual Project Written Report November 19, 2007

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