Evaluation of color was performed on a group of cheese cracker surfaces at 1 week and 4 months of room temperature storage, using a HunterLab MiniScan XE Plus, portable color spectrophotometer (Hunter Associates Laboratory Inc., Reston, VA, USA). The instrument was calibrated using the black and white standard tiles that came with the instrument. The operating conditions were 10˚ observer, D65 illuminant and 45/0 sensor. An average of five values was taken per sample. An optical aperture of 1.7 cm was used. L*, a * , b* , C * and h* values were recorded. Mean L*, a * , and b* values at each time point that was measured were used to calculate the magnitude of the total color difference (ΔE) using the equation