Influence of saliva on temporal volatile flavour release from red bell peppers determined by proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry

The effect of saliva on temporal volatile flavour release from rehydrated red bell peppers was evaluated. The addition of 40% artificial saliva (w/w) was studied using a model mouth combined with proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry. Saliva reduced the maximum headspace concentration during temporal release of 2-methylpropanal, 2/3-methylbutanal and hexanal by 42% on average. This was attributed to an effect of saliva on both the thermodynamic and kinetic component of flavour release, as saliva resulted in an average decrease of 25% for these compounds in equilibrium headspace analysis. A preliminary comparison of model mouth and in-nose analysis showed that the model mouth mimicked temporal release under mouth conditions quite well.