Abstract
Fat and salt are a common and attractive combination in food and overconsumption of either is associated with negative health outcomes. The major aim was to investigate contributions and interactions of salt and fat on taste pleasantness and perception. The minor aim was to investigate individual fat taste sensitivity (detection threshold of oleic acid [C18:1]) on pleasantness for fat. In a complete factorial design, 49 participants (18–54 years, 12 males) tasted tomato soups with 4 different fat concentrations (0–20%) and 5 different salt concentrations (0.04–2.0%). The preferred concentration and the discrimination ability for both fat and salt were determined by ranking tests. Results show that salt and fat affected pleasantness separately (P < 0.01), with salt having the strongest effect. Fat concentrations 0%, 5%, and 10% did not differ in pleasantness, whereas 20% was less pleasant (P < 0.05). There were no interactions for fat and salt on pleasantness or saltiness and fattiness intensity. Fat taste sensitive participants preferred lower fat concentrations than less sensitive participants (P = 0.008). In conclusion, the strong effect of salt on pleasantness in this study suggests that salt, rather than fat, play a major role in the attraction to savory fatty foods.
Highlights
Fat and salt both stimulate appetite (Blundell and Macdiarmid 1997; Leshem 2009) and are an attractive combination in food
Post hoc comparisons for fat showed that concentrations of 0%, 5%, and 10% fat did not differ, but significantly lower pleasantness for 20% fat compared with 0% and 10% of fat
The model clearly shows that pleasantness was more affected by the salt concentration than by the fat concentration in the test food
Summary
Fat and salt both stimulate appetite (Blundell and Macdiarmid 1997; Leshem 2009) and are an attractive combination in food. Mixtures of fat and salt are commonly found in high-fat, high energy dense snacks and fast foods. Overconsumption of both dietary fat and salt are associated with various negative health outcomes, for example, cardiovascular disease (Bray and Popkin 1998; Bray et al 2004; Brown et al 2009; He and MacGregor 2010). There is increasing evidence that fatty acids (i.e., the breakdown products of dietary fat) are detected by the gustatory system and “fat” is considered as a sixth taste primary (e.g., Mattes 2009a; DiPatrizio 2014; Tucker et al 2014; Keast and Costanzo 2015). Previous research suggests that diet is an important factor influencing fat taste sensitivity and excessive consumption of dietary fat over 4 weeks attenuates fat taste sensitivity in lean subjects, while reducing dietary fat increases sensitivity in both lean and obese (Stewart and Keast 2012b)
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