Can the Palatability of Healthy, Satiety-Promoting Foods Increase with Repeated Exposure during Weight Loss?

Katherene O-B Anguah,Petra E Eichelsdoerfer,Jennifer C Lovejoy,Megan A Mccrory,Bruce A Craig,Malinda M Gehrke,Philip A Palmer

doi:10.3390/foods6020016

Abstract

Repeated exposure to sugary, fatty, and salty foods often enhances their appeal. However, it is unknown if exposure influences learned palatability of foods typically promoted as part of a healthy diet. We tested whether the palatability of pulse containing foods provided during a weight loss intervention which were particularly high in fiber and low in energy density would increase with repeated exposure. At weeks 0, 3, and 6, participants (n = 42; body mass index (BMI) 31.2 ± 4.3 kg/m2) were given a test battery of 28 foods, approximately half which had been provided as part of the intervention, while the remaining half were not foods provided as part of the intervention. In addition, about half of each of the foods (provided as part or not provided as part of the intervention) contained pulses. Participants rated the taste, appearance, odor, and texture pleasantness of each food, and an overall flavor pleasantness score was calculated as the mean of these four scores. Linear mixed model analyses showed an exposure type by week interaction effect for taste, texture and overall flavor pleasantness indicating statistically significant increases in ratings of provided foods in taste and texture from weeks 0 to 3 and 0 to 6, and overall flavor from weeks 0 to 6. Repeated exposure to these foods, whether they contained pulses or not, resulted in a ~4% increase in pleasantness ratings. The long-term clinical relevance of this small increase requires further study.

Highlights

Palatability is defined as “the hedonic evaluation of oro-sensory food cues under standardized conditions” [1]
The purpose of this study was to test the effects of repeated exposure to foods that were provided during a weight-loss intervention, including foods containing pulses, on changes in the palatability ratings of those foods
Values for palatability ratings ranged from a low of 6.4 ± 0.3 to a high of 7.5 ± 0.2 and varied across taste, odor, texture, appearance, and flavor variables (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Palatability is defined as “the hedonic evaluation of oro-sensory food cues under standardized conditions” [1]. While foods higher in palatability are consumed in higher amounts in controlled studies, independent of macronutrient composition [6,9,10], community-dwelling individuals tend not to self-select foods that are not well-liked [11]. It is generally believed that foods containing fat, salt, and/or sugar, and which tend to be energy dense, become more appealing with repeated exposure [12,13,14,15], though not all studies show this [16,17,18]. With repeated exposure to less palatable foods, or to low fat foods, individuals increased their acceptance of those foods [15,17,19,20,21,22,23,24,25] and in some cases the intake of those foods increased sufficiently to match the intake of other foods that were initially well-liked [26,27]

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Conclusion