Children's acceptability profiles for biscuits with different fiber content

Abstract

Due to the widespread rejection by children of products with high‐fiber content, new approaches to meet the dietary recommendations on fiber intake are necessary. To understand which sensory properties influence this rejection, children's acceptability was examined in high‐fiber biscuits and drivers of liking were identified. One hundred and ten Spanish children (6–12 years old) evaluated the overall liking of eight commercial biscuits with variable fiber content and stated their preference. To study the drivers of liking, the samples were characterized through a quantitative descriptive analysis, the determination of the moisture and water activity as well as the instrumental evaluation of texture with a texture analyzer. It was suggested that the addition of fiber in biscuits reduced children's liking ratings. High‐fiber samples were sensory and instrumentally described as harder, crispier, and more chewing than the samples with medium and low fiber content. The main sensory driver of liking identified in this study was the soft texture. Despite their hard texture, high‐ and medium‐fiber samples were chosen as the preferred ones for 14% of the children that participated when they included chocolate taste. Drivers of disliking identified in this study were related to the addition of fruit as a filling or as dehydrated pieces. This knowledge about children's acceptability of high‐fiber products might be of interest for the food industry with the aim of developing well‐accepted products that supply nutritional deficiencies associated with the fiber intake.

Rational Food Design Targeting Micronutrient Deficiencies in Adolescents: Nutritional, Acoustic-Mechanical and Sensory Properties of Chickpea-Rice Biscuits

“…No association between texture and acoustic parameters and the sensory attribute crispiness was detected. This is in disagreement with the results of da Quinta, Alvarez-Sabatel [24], Gouyo, Mestres [27], Salvador, Varela [28]. Their studies have reported that the LDF, NFP, NSP and Smax are positively correlated with the crispness of a product.…”

“…Since the parameters LDF, NFP, NSP and Smax are the indicators of the crispness of a product [24,27,28], these results suggest that when the biscuit is made with 100% chickpea flour, its crispness will be significantly higher than when the mixture of the two flours is used. Figure 2 shows force-time and sound-time curves obtained in the texture and acoustic event analysis for each biscuit.…”

“…The samples were penetrated using a cylinder probe of 4 mm in diameter at a test speed of 1 mm/s. The distance was 10 mm, and the trigger force was 5 g, based on the procedure of da Quinta, Alvarez-Sabatel [24]. Ten replicates were used for each biscuit type.…”

“…The crispness attribute was associated with several acoustic and mechanical parameters [24,27,28]. These were the maximum loudness perceived during the break evaluated as sound pressure level (SPL) in dB, number of sound peaks (peaks higher than 1 dB), number of force peaks (peaks higher than 0.2 N) and the linear distance (N*s).…”