Crunchiness
Encyclopedia
Crunchiness is the gustatory sensation of muffled grinding of a foodstuff. Crunchiness differs from crispness in that a crisp item is quickly atomized, while a crunchy one offers sustained, granular resistance to jaw
Jaw
The jaw is any opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth, typically used for grasping and manipulating food. The term jaws is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serving to open and close it and is part of the body plan of...

 action. While crispness is difficult to maintain, crunchiness is difficult to overcome.

Vickers (1981) and Christensen and Vickers (1981) aver that crispness and crunchiness can each be "assessed on the basis of sound
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...

 alone, on the basis of oral-tactile clues alone, or on the basis of a combination of auditory and oral-tactile information." They also note that an acoustic frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...

 of 1.9 kHz seems to mark the threshold between the two sensations, with crunchiness at frequencies below, and crispness at frequencies above.

Crunchy foods include:
  • Carrots
  • Crunch bar
  • Mints
    Mint (candy)
    A mint is a candy characterized by the presence of mint flavoring or real mint oil, whether it be peppermint oil, spearmint oil, or another natural or artificial source...

  • Peanut
    Peanut
    The peanut, or groundnut , is a species in the legume or "bean" family , so it is not a nut. The peanut was probably first cultivated in the valleys of Peru. It is an annual herbaceous plant growing tall...

    s
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