"The First Bite of the Cherry": Intra-oral Manipulation Prior to the First Bite in Humans

The breakdown of food in the mouth during mastication can be described in terms of two parameters: a breakage function, which describes the fragmentation of food after a bite, and a selection function which defines the probability of particle fracture. The non-zero value of the selection function depends on the manipulation of food particles by the tongue. Little, however, is known about this. As a first step, this study investigated the manipulation of wax sheets of differing sizes and shapes by the tongue after ingestion. It was found that subjects tended to orientate rectangular and square wax wafers so that the long axis of the particle was parallel to the tooth row, independent of the initial orientation given when they were introduced into the mouth. Circular wafers were randomly oriented relative to initial orientation. If this could be extrapolated to the start of mastication, then it suggests that the tongue tends to align food particles so that the post-canines produce close to the greatest surface area possible by fragmenting them along their longest axis.