Abstract
Sensory properties inform likes and dislikes, but also play an important functional role in guiding food choice and intake behavior. Odors direct food choice and stimulate sensory-specific appetites and taste helps to anticipate calorie and nutrient content of food. Food textures moderate eating rate and the energy consumed to satiation and post-ingestive metabolism. We summarize how sensory cues moderate intake, and highlight opportunities to apply sensory approaches to improve dietary behavior. Salt, sweet and savory taste influence liking, but also influence energy intake to fullness, with higher taste intensity and duration linked to lower intake. Psycho-physical studies show it is relatively easy to rank taste intensities at different concentrations but more challenging to discriminate fat contents, and fat discrimination declines further when combined with high-taste intensity. Fat has low impact on sensory intensity, but makes significant contributions to energy content. Combinations of high taste and fat-content can promote passive energy over-consumption, and adding fat also increases energy intake rate (kcals/min), reducing opportunities to orally meter consumption. Consumers adapt their oral processing behaviors to a foods texture, which can influence the rate and extent of energy intake. Understanding how texture influences eating behaviors and bolus formation, affords new opportunities to impact eating rate, energy intake and metabolic response to food. Food formulation has traditionally focused on composition and sensory appeal. Future research needs to consider the role of sensory properties in moderating consumer interaction with their food environment, and how they influence calorie selection, and shape our eating behaviors and intake.
Highlights
Sensory Science and Eating Behavior Group, Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Netherlands
High sensory appeal is proposed as the main reason for excessive energy intakes, yet dietary energy intake patterns are not dominated only by highly palatable foods, and most energy is consumed from staple foods and meals with diverse sensory properties
Sensory Nutrition senses of vision and olfaction are involved in the anticipation of food intake and direct sensory specific appetites and food choice
Summary
Sensory Science and Eating Behavior Group, Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Netherlands. Combinations of high taste and fat-content can promote passive energy over-consumption, and adding fat increases energy intake rate (kcals/min), reducing opportunities to orally meter consumption Consumers adapt their oral processing behaviors to a foods texture, which can influence the rate and extent of energy intake. Slower eating rates result in greater bolus surface area, saliva uptakes and may have an incretin effect as early glucose release stimulates greater early insulin release [36, 65] Taken together, these findings indicate that food texture contributes much more “sensory appeal”, and can effect satiation and satiety by moderating eating rate, but can exerts influence on the oral phase of digestion and the subsequent metabolic response to ingested nutrients. Further research is needed to understand how food texture based differences in eating rate can influence food intake control and support healthy metabolic responses to ingested nutrients
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call