CONSUMER PREFERENCE AND PROPERTIES OF RAW AND COOKED MILLED RICE

Consumer preference tests for raw and cooked rices were run on representative consumers 16 years and older in a selected Philippine village. For four sets of samples, major criteria for selecting raw milled rice were grain whiteness and hardness, and aroma and flavor for boiled rice. Actual preference ranks suggested partiality to white raw rice and low-amylose, intermediate-amylose and high-amylose boiled rice in order of decreasing preference. Soft texture due to low amylose content probably contributed to better flavor of boiled rice.
Selection criteria for one set of waxy rices were aroma and whole, big grains for raw rice, and aroma and cohesiveness for rice cake suman sa antala . Properties disliked in suman were flakiness, and coarse, hard, and soft textures. Among five low-gelatinization temperature, waxy milled rices, the traditional, aromatic, coarse-grained Malagkit Sungsong was preferred over newer rices with less aroma and with longer grains in both raw and suman forms.     

SENSORY AND INSTRUMENTAL EVALUATION OF TEXTURE OF COOKED AND RAW MILLED RICES WITH SIMILAR STARCH PROPERTIES

Three pairs of milled rices with similar starch properties (low gelatinization temperature waxy, and low gelatinization temperature low amylose, and intermediate gelatinization temperature intermediate amylose) were assessed for cooked rice properties by two industry taste panels and for raw and cooked rice properties by 30-member Filipino consumer panels. Only slight differences in texture within pairs were noted by the two industry taste panels who had not been trained to assess boiled raw rice or waxy rice. The Filipino consumer panel gave significantly higher ranked scores for one low-amylose variety in both raw and cooked forms. Malagkit Sungsong suman sa antala was ranked higher than modern waxy rices. Instrumental methods for translucency and whiteness of raw rice and Instron hardness and stickiness of cooked rice were not able to detect differences perceived by the Filipino consumer panels.     

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATIVE COMPARISON OF INSTRUMENT METHODS FOR COOKED RICE TEXTURE

The texture of 10 milled rices cooked by a standardized method in excess water was measured in 11 laboratories using various instrument methods that had been developed specifically for national samples. The samples selected represented a wide range of rice textures. Instrument indexes for hardness and stickiness of cooked rice generally were more sensitive than the corresponding taste panel scores in discriminating among the 10 cooked rice samples. Instrument indexes for hardness correlated positively among each other as did those for stickiness. Most hardness indexes showed significant negative correlation with stickiness indexes. Most hardness indexes were positively correlated with amylose content whereas stickiness indexes were negatively correlated with amylose content. The continued use of amylose content as an index of eating quality in a rice breeding program is justified.