Shear test: a Kramer shear cell five-blade probe (Fig. 2E) was used, with test speed of 1 mm/s. Sufficient quantity of snack was used to cover the bottom of the cell, without overlapping of the pieces, and shearing was performed until the probe had completed its travel. The peak force obtained, in newtons, was taken to be the result from the test.
Before the analyses, the snacks were carefully cut to achieve standardization regarding the shape for the instrumental test:
– Compression test: all snacks were cut into squares of side length 1.5 cm (smaller than the probe);
– Cut test with guillotine, cut test with ‘‘V’’ shape probe and puncture test: the cylindrical and ring-shaped snacks were standardized with lengths of 3 cm; the pellet snacks were cut into rectangles of length 2 cm and width 1.5 cm; the shell-shaped snacks were cut to have a diameter of 1.5 cm.
– Shear test: the original shape of all the snacks was preserved. All analyses were performed at ten replicates.
2.4. Statistical analysis
The means of the sensory attributes were compared using var- iance analysis followed by the Tukey test (significant difference