Individual differences in the acceptability of healthy foods: focus on phenol and fat content

Food preferences are formed due to the effects of environment (exposure and experience) and genetic predispositions, which together play a central role in determining food selection and diet quality. Human senses, in particular those involved in flavour perception (taste, olfactory and somatosensory systems) are tuned to act as composite gatekeepers for food intake and have a significant role in dietary choice. In product development individual differences have been traditionally considered as ‘noise’ that contributes to undesirable data variability and have been rarely used as a potential driver of differential food choices (i.e., market segmentation), while socio-demographics and attitudes have been often considered the main factors determining individual differences in the appreciation of food. However, the study of the influence of sensory and hedonic individual differences in the acceptability of products is extremely important in modern food product development. The project explores, in a large scale study on Italian adult respondents, individual differences in sensory and hedonic responses to relevant taste and oral sensations, socio-demographic, personality traits and socio-cognitive variables in order to better understand and overcome barriers to the consumption of healthy foods. Bitterness and astringency represent sensory barriers to the acceptance of phenol enriched food, as well as fat reduction in protein-rich products. For these reasons the project specifically considers two case studies: the variation of fat content in an innovative meat product and the enrichment in phenol content (extracts from by-products) of a smooth vegetable soup. Phenol extracts are considered in the project because their high antioxidant power. Bioactive phenols extracted from by-products, purified and stabilized, will be used to produce functional foods and/or as natural ingredients with antioxidant properties to replace synthetic food additives. Both strategic and operational targets are considered. Strategic targets are: to investigate the effect of individual sensory sensitivity to bitter taste, astringency and fattiness on consumer food liking, preference and behaviour; to contribute to the exploitation of by-products from wine and olive oil production chains to improve relevant sustainability. Operational targets are: to develop food prototypes that fit the preference of consumer clusters indentified on the basis of their sensory and hedonic responses and profiled according to socio-demographics, attitudes towards healthy foods and psychological traits; to design and optimize operating conditions for producing characterized and stable phenol extracts from wine and oil production chains.