Abstract: In order to objectively evaluate the texture quality of kelp, six texture parameters including hardness, elasticity, chewiness, cohesiveness, adhesiveness and recovery of kelp samples bleached by different concentrations of calcium salts were analyzed. The fuzzy sensory evaluation and principal component analysis were used to construct the evaluation method of kelp quality. The results showed that there was a quadratic function relationship between texture parameter and sensory score, and there were several quality indicators X_max exist when sensory score at the highest level. The parameters of texture were transformed into texture index positively correlated with sensory quality. According to the principal component analysis, two main components were extracted from the six quality indicators, the total variance could reach to 93.988%. The ratio of the variance contribution of each principal component to the total variance contribution was taken as the principal component weighting coefficient to calculate the composite score, then it was converted into the texture composite index by normalization. The results of this method could comprehensively reflect the quality of kelp texture.

Key words: kelp, blanching, texture quality, principal component analysis, comprehensive evaluation