Food oral processing: A bibliometric for current and prospective outlooks

Food oral processing (FOP) has emerged as a new science to studying changes in food structure through the oral cavity, mastication process and bolus formation, all depending on the composition and structure of food. This work aimed to present a bibliometric analysis showing the current panorama of research related to the FOP, highlighting trends and new perspectives. The study was performed by exploring the Elsevier Scopus and PubMed database using the keywords “oral processing” AND “food” as search string in topic and title to select original research articles or review articles published without limit time. The inclusion criteria were "food oral processing evaluated in vivo or in vitro including bouche artificielle", with language restrictions (English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish). Exclusion criteria were "oral processing evaluated in animals" and “oral processing evaluation with dental purposes”. The research resulted in 507 articles, published between 2004 and 2023. Keywords cooccurrence analysis was performed in the VOSviewer software. The salient terms highlight sensory perception, saliva, texture, and taste evaluating during oral processing. Bread, oil, and fats were the principal food matrices. These analyses were carried out at different stages of consumers' lives and evaluate deglutition disorders, feeding behavior, appetite, satiation, and satiety. These results consolidate the strong interconnection between food structure, sensory perception and feeding behavior perceived by the consumer, indicating the interdisciplinary of FOP. The results show FOP as a science that identifies problems and generates current solutions that involve food intake associated with health diseases, especially in the reformulation of food products with better sensory and nutritional quality for all types of consumers.