SUMMARY Food texture affects chewing movement six and three subjects preferred to chew on right or
but it is not known if it also affects the chewing-side left sides respectively. The chewing-side pattern
pattern. This study determined the chewing sides of remained unchanged between three food types in
three test foods with different textures during about half of the subjects. When the same food was
habitual chewing. Twenty healthy dental students compared between 2 days, the chewing-side pattern
(aged 20–24 years) chewed pieces of pork jerky, of almonds was shown to be most reproducible (18
fresh asparagus and almonds on two separate ses- subjects). Unidentified cycles with little or no lateral
sions (1 week apart). In each session, each subject displacement, labelled as bilateral, were observed
chewed 30 food specimens, 10 of the same food type, more frequently near the end of the chewing
until swallowing while a video camera recorded the sequence with more occurrences in almonds and
displacement of the chin with respect to the other jerky than asparagus (P < 0Æ01). It was suggested that
two reference points vertically marked along the chewing-side preference is not a fixed characteristic.
facial midline. A slow-speed video playback was Food texture seemed to influence the side prefer-
used to identify the chewing side of each cycle. The ence and also the occurrence of bilateral cycles.
chewing-side pattern (right preference, left prefer- KEYWORDS: preferred chewing side, food texture,
ence, no preference) in each individual was deter- chewing pattern, jaw movement, mastication
mined statistically. The results showed that overall,
11 subjects did not have any side preference whereas Accepted for publication 3 May 2005
used in previous studies. The texture of food can alter (fresh supplies daily), wrapped in plastic and stored at
some components of chewing cycle (2, 13–15) and 4 C not more than 2 days before use. During each
perhaps influence the preferred chewing side. The chewing session, subjects were seated upright in a
present study was aimed to test if an individual’s comfortable chair with a headrest and eyes aiming
chewing-side pattern was affected by food texture and horizontally while chewing the test food habitually
if it differed between days. until they decided to swallow. In random order,
10 pieces of each of the three foods were given to each
subject, thus making a total of 30 food samples (trials)
Materials and methods
being tested on each day. All subjects returned for the
second session 7 days later (day 2) and the entire series
Experimental procedure
was repeated. The technique used to observe the
The study was approved by the Khon Kaen University chewing side is described as follows. Three pencilled
Ethical Committee. Twenty dental students, aged dots were marked on the subject’s facial skin, one at the
20–24 years, having given informed consent, partici- tip of the nose, one just below the center of the lower
pated in this study. All subjects had normal masticatory lip and one on the chin. Subjects were asked to move
function with angle class I molar relationship and had their head as little as they could during the recording
28 natural teeth (excluding third molars). The maxi- session so that the three marked dots were aligned
mum lateral jaw excursion measured at the mid- vertically during each chewing trial. A video camera
mandibular central incisors in each individual did not (Panasonic NV-VX3)§ was placed 1 m in front of the
show any apparent difference between right and left subject and the picture zoomed in to cover the tip of the
sides. On the first day (day 1), each subject was asked to nose and mouth region. The recorded tapes were played
chew three test foods, being pork jerky (1 cm long)*, off-line by another investigator using a slow-speed
fresh asparagus (1 cm long selected from the middle playback mode of a video cassette player (Panasonic
part of the stalk) and almond (approximately 2 cm NV-SR98)§ to determine the chewing side of each cycle.
long, Blue Diamond)† representing tough, soft ductile A clear plastic ruler was placed over the subject’s mid-
and brittle food respectively. As the physical properties facial line on the television screen to help distinguish
of test foods could be variable, the same foods used in the path of chin movement. Using this method, most
subjects were tested separately for their ultimate cycles could be identified as right (R) or left (L) cycles.
strength and modulus of elasticity using a universal Some of the cycles, however, could not be clearly
testing machine‡ with a head speed of 5 mm min)1 as identified (U) because of indistinguishable transverse
follows. For almond, the whole seed was placed movement. The validity of this visual method in
horizontally and compressed between two metal plates. correctly identifying the right and left cycles was tested
For asparagus, a piece of 1 cm length selected from the by having three subjects’ chewing gum according to
middle part, was placed horizontally and tested under any of four different preset sequences (12 cycles per
compression. For pork jerky, a 4-cm-long specimen was sequence). Ten chewing sequences (60 right and 60 left
cut with an orientation similar to that inserted into the cycles) were tested in total and the cycles were
mouth and tested under tension (it was difficult to identified by the same person as in the actual experi-
recognize the orientation of muscle fibres in order to ments. The cross-tab analysis revealed agreement
test separately the specimens cut parallel and perpen- cofficients (kappa) ranging from 0Æ70 to 0Æ83.
dicular to the fibre orientation). Ten specimens of each
food were tested on two different days (7 days apart).
Data analysis
All foods tested were stored in the same way as in the
experimental sessions; almonds and jerky were kept in The number of right and left cycles was expressed as a
a sealed container stored at room temperature whereas percentage of the total cycle number, i.e. %R and %L
the asparagus was newly bought from the supermarket respectively. On each day, the ‘chewing-side pattern’ of
a given subject chewing a given test food was deter-
*Naem Lub Lae, Khon Kaen, Thailand.
mined by statistically comparing the %R and %L with
†
Heritage Snacks and Beverages, Nakorn Pathom, Thailand.
‡ §
Lloyd, Lloyd Instruments, Hants, UK. Matsushita Industrial, Osaka, Japan.
Mann–Whitney tests (n ¼ 10 trials for each food). Table 2. Side preference determination for each subject from two
A given subject was considered to have a ‘right’ sessions of 30 trials
P-values for chewing-side preference obtained from Mann–Whitney tests are indicated for each
subject.
R ¼ right side preference; L ¼ left side preference; No label ¼ no side preference.
Each period is obtained by dividing the chewing sequence into three equal intervals. Percentages
of unidentified cycles seen during late periods were, in general, higher than middle periods and
both were significantly higher than during early periods (P < 0Æ01). The percentages seen with
asparagus were always significantly lower than those with jerky and almond (P < 0Æ01).
with the present study. About the same number of our was difficult to break fresh asparagus into pieces before
subjects did or did not have a preferred chewing side. it could be chewed bilaterally. Dried pork jerky and
This did not conform with some previous studies which almonds, on the contrary, are more brittle and easily
showed side preference in most subjects (4–6,16). The broken into separate pieces, resulting in more bilateral
difference could be due to the observation method, cycles. Dealing with natural food products, the present
number of trials, types of test food and the method used study was limited by the difficulty to standardize the
in analysing the preferred chewing side. The determin- rheological properties of the test foods, especially fresh
ation of the preferred chewing side in this study was asparagus and pork jerky. Randomization of food
similar to that used by Wilding and Lewin (4). They, specimens might help to reduce the effect of such
however, found that most subjects had a preferred variability. Some physical properties of the food sam-
chewing side. The results of the present study suggest ples were also tested in this study although more
that chewing-side preference is not a fixed character- comprehensive tests (such as plasticity and toughness
istic, especially when food texture or recording session tests) might give a better picture. In conclusion, the
is different. More subjects (seven to nine subjects) had a present study suggested that chewing-side pattern
preferred chewing side when chewing tough jerky depended on food texture and could change between
compared to hard almonds (five subjects). Cutting days. The determination of preferred chewing side
(grinding) tough food (like jerky) might require a more using natural foods of different textures, therefore, does
comfortable chewing side whereas breaking almonds not seem to be a simple task. Among the three food
might be indifferent between both sides of the jaw, types tested, almond as brittle food seems to be the best
resulting in more frequent chewing-side alternation. choice when food comminution (grinding effect) is
Interestingly, seven to nine subjects also showed a side evaluated or if chewing-side reproducibility is needed
preference when chewing fresh asparagus. Although whereas tough or fibrous food may better reveal the
tender foods are likely to be chewed indifferently on side preference when the cutting effect is at stake. It
either side of the jaw, fresh asparagus might be so should be added that the cohesiveness of the bolus
fibrous that it needed to be chewed on the preferred could play a role in the resultant side preference since
side. Toughness of foods, therefore, might help explain foods with great cohesion (e.g. fibrous food) are not
the choice of chewing side. Wilding and Lewin (4) easily dissociated and tend to be chewed unilaterally.
noticed a similarity of the chewing-side pattern
between two recording sessions in their subjects chew-
Acknowledgments
ing wine-gums. In the present study, almonds showed
the most reproducible chewing-side pattern (18 of The authors would like to thank Prof. J. W. Osborn for
20 subjects), compared with asparagus and jerky. This reading and giving valuable advice on the original
was probably because of the more regular texture of version of this manuscript and Prof. P. W. Lucas who
wine-gums and almonds although the strength and advised on food property testing. This study was
elasticity of pork jerky and asparagus tested on 2 days supported by the Research Fund of Faculty of Dentistry,
was not significantly different. It was also possible that Khon Kaen University.
the breakage of brittle foods like almonds might be
easily reproduced whereas that of jerky and asparagus
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