Influence of Sensory Properties in Moderating Eating Behaviors and Food Intake

Abstract

Sensory properties inform likes and dislikes, but also play an important functional role in guiding food choice and intake behavior. Odors direct food choice and stimulate sensory-specific appetites and taste helps to anticipate calorie and nutrient content of food. Food textures moderate eating rate and the energy consumed to satiation and post-ingestive metabolism. We summarize how sensory cues moderate intake, and highlight opportunities to apply sensory approaches to improve dietary behavior. Salt, sweet and savory taste influence liking, but also influence energy intake to fullness, with higher taste intensity and duration linked to lower intake. Psycho-physical studies show it is relatively easy to rank taste intensities at different concentrations but more challenging to discriminate fat contents, and fat discrimination declines further when combined with high-taste intensity. Fat has low impact on sensory intensity, but makes significant contributions to energy content. Combinations of high taste and fat-content can promote passive energy over-consumption, and adding fat also increases energy intake rate (kcals/min), reducing opportunities to orally meter consumption. Consumers adapt their oral processing behaviors to a foods texture, which can influence the rate and extent of energy intake. Understanding how texture influences eating behaviors and bolus formation, affords new opportunities to impact eating rate, energy intake and metabolic response to food. Food formulation has traditionally focused on composition and sensory appeal. Future research needs to consider the role of sensory properties in moderating consumer interaction with their food environment, and how they influence calorie selection, and shape our eating behaviors and intake.

Characterizing Adolescents' Dietary Intake by Taste: Results From the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey

“…A number of sensory studies (i.e., taste perception and/or preference studies) have been conducted in relation to food choice and dietary intake in different age groups (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). Sweet, salty and savory tastes have been shown to influence energy intake (18). In our previous systematic review of adolescents' taste perception and food choices, we found that perceived bitterness in cruciferous vegetables (i.e., broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower) was negatively associated with intake and preferences and positively associated with energy intake.…”

Interrelations Between Food Form, Texture, and Matrix Influence Energy Intake and Metabolic Responses

“…Future dietary interventions may consider opportunities to moderate eating rate and intake behavior by changing food texture, while also optimizing nutrient absorption with an enhanced matrix structure. Research has shown that hedonically equivalent food textures can be used to reduce earing rate and energy intake, with estimates suggesting a 20% reduction in eating rate is associated with decreases of 10–14% in ad libitum intake [ 33 ]. Future research is now needed to demonstrate the sustained efficacy of these texture-based approaches beyond the current short-term feeding trials.…”

“…In addition to the large differences between liquids and solid foods, the texture of solid and semi-solid foods has been shown to influence the eating rate and energy intake [ 33 , 34 ]. Texture properties influence the oro-sensory exposure time, average bite/sip size, and number of chews per bite and through this meal eating rate (g/min) and energy intake rate (kcal/min) during consumption.…”

“…In this way, food texture influences acute and habitual energy intakes and exerts an influence that is often independent of a food composition and energy density [ 53 ]. As such, the form and texture of the food we consume play a functional role in guiding eating behavior and intake and alongside efforts to reformulate foods; texture presents a novel target for sensory and behavioral interventions that aim to increase or decrease food intake within a meal [ 3 , 33 ].…”

A Cross-sectional Analysis of Food Perceptions, Food Preferences, Diet Quality, and Health in a Food Desert Campus

“…Individuals identifying as Hispanics and African-Americans are found to rate various taste intensities (sweet, salty, sour, and bitter) higher than non-Hispanics with more notable differences being apparent in males than females (15). Since sensory properties appear to determine food choices and intake (2), these could potentially play a role in the diet-related disparities among racial and ethnic minority groups (17). In addition, there are documented differences in food choices by gender.…”