Inclusion of the sex/gender variables in sensory analysis of meat products: state-of-art

Meat and meat products are among the most consumed foods in the world. Consumers’ opinion is a good guide to improve meat products’ quality and, for this reason, it is important to carry out sensory consumer tests so that they can express their preferences. Background, demographic aspects and attitude of consumers influence how they perceive meat products. For instance, consumers from one tribe may like a certain type of meat, while other consumers may dislike that meat (Njisane et al., 2012). However, the use of untrained consumers for assessing meat quality may produce responses that are unreliable or invalid. Sensory evaluation based on direct impressions is considered a reference method and an invaluable measurement tool in food quality assessment. If applied correctly, sensory science is a powerful tool, as it provides measures no other instrument (to date) can provide: a detailed description of how a food item is perceived by the human senses and/or how much this item is liked (Mörlein, 2019). For these reasons, it is very important that the panel, the fundamental instrument of sensory analysis, is structured in a suitable manner. Some fundamental aspects to consider for the formation of a panel are the sex and gender of its components and their age, as well as, in a second instance, the level of education. It is very important that the gender and sex of the judges is as balanced as possible, so as to obtain statistically valid data. In fact, it is well known that gender can affect food appetite, affective reaction, perception and selection. Different studies report that men have tendencies to rate sweeter foods higher, probably because women tend to care more about healthiness of food products (Michon et al., 2010). However, regarding comfort foods, women mostly choose snack foods like chocolate or ice cream, whereas men usually prefer hot meals (steak, soups, etc.) (Wansink et al., 2003). On the other hand, it has been shown that women are more prone than men to taste new or novel foods (Beardsworth et al., 2002), even though they are more inclined to have food rejections (Nordin et al., 2004). Other studies suggested that gender differences may be due to man focusing more on any information they receive about the product rather than in their senses and the actual sensation they experience, as women seem to actually do (Schifferstein, 2006). It is thus clear that there are relevant differences between males and females when expressing food preferences. By analyzing the literature of the past few years, it is possible to notice how very few works take into consideration the sex and gender variables in the formation of a trained panel or during the execution of consumer tests. From this survey, it is evident that less than 1% of the papers published on sensory analysis of meat products actually include the sex/gender variables in the formation of a trained panel or during the execution of consumer tests. A great deal of relevant information about the effect of gender on consumers’ food preferences is not being collected. A greater effort should be done towards the inclusion of the sex/gender variables in this research field, as it could be useful for meat product formulation and development to further improve food preferences.