The three main aspects of food sensory quality are appearance, sense of feel or texture and flavour. Of the three, appearance characteristics are probably the most important and the saying 'We eat with our eyes' is very true in most cases. Appearance factors can be subdivided into a number of areas: colour, gloss, shape, size, defects, oiliness, viscosity, etc. Colour is very important in food and is used to judge the quality, maturity and age after harvest of many foods. Leafy vegetables are expected to be a fresh green colour, carrots should be a deep orange, strawberries and meat a bright red, tomatoes yellow-red to red and pastries a nice golden brown . . Consumers often demand colours in foods that are not natural to the foods themselves and consumers in different countries have different colour preferences.
