What determines if something is easy to chew? A lot of liquid or totally dehydrated?
On one hand, we have foods like jelly or melted cheese which are primarily liquid and seem very easy to eat and swallow. On the other hand, we have astronaut food or some pastries (or cotton candy?) which have no liquid at all. They essentially crumble and turn into dust in your mouth, and are easy to eat as well.
Recently I've had some dried mango and beef jerky, and my understanding is these aren't perfectly liquid-free, and these are really hard to chew!
So why is it that something that's mostly liquid is easy to eat, something that's not liquid at all is easy to eat, but somewhere in the middle we have to put in a lot of effort to chew food? What determines how "chewy" or difficult a food is to eat?
Best Answer
It depends on how well the "building blocks" of the food stick to each other. The "building blocks" can be different things, whatever you have in the food you are considering: small molecules, polymers, cells, tissue formations, globules, bubbles, films, and probably some more.
If they are not soluble in your saliva and they hold onto each other tightly, you won't be able to separate them well by crushing and shearing with your teeth. If they are loosely held, the food will be easy to chew.
The effects of moisture will be varied, depending on how it contributes to the structure of a given food. You cannot make a general statement based on water content only.
Pictures about "What determines if something is easy to chew? A lot of liquid or totally dehydrated?"
Drs. Rx: Try This Simple Dehydration Test!
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Karolina Grabowska, Arina Krasnikova, Arina Krasnikova, Guido Reimann