Dietary habits and the perception and liking of sweetness among Australian and Malaysian students: A cross-cultural study

Abstract

This study examined whether the perception of, and preference for, varying levels of sucrose in water, orange juice, custard and biscuit were related to dietary intakes of sugar and sweet foods in 69 Caucasian Australian and 63 Malaysian university students living in Australia. The two ethnic groups were equally able to discriminate the relative differences in sucrose concentration among the test samples, and a similar percentage of each group were sweetness likers or dislikers. Some significant differences between the ethnic groups' sweetness intensity and preference ratings were observed, but the differences were food-specific and were not always apparent for the same sucrose level in the different test foods. Within each ethnic group, more subjects had greater difficulty discriminating different sucrose levels in a solid, high fat biscuit. The Australian group had higher mean liking ratings than the Malaysian group for the orange juice and biscuit samples. However, both groups preferred similar levels of sucrose in the juice, custard and biscuit, which were similar to the amounts of sucrose present in current commercial products. The hedonic response pattern to the sucrose solution was not a good predictor of the hedonic responses to the other test stimuli, which indicates that preferred levels of sweetness are food-specific. Sweetness intensity ratings were not significantly associated with any of the dietary intake variables or bitterness ratings to 6- n-propylthiouracil. However, subjects who preferred higher levels of sucrose in the test stimuli tended to have higher dietary intakes of sugar and sweet foods.