Abstract
BackgroundIn Japan, consumption of Natto, a fermented bean dish, is recommended because of its high quality protein, digestibility in the gut and its preventive effect on blood clot formation due to high vitamin K content. However, consumption of Natto in Kansai and the Chugoku area (the western part of Honshu) is less than that in the other areas of Japan probably because of a “food related cultural inhibition”. In this study, we determined which characteristic of Natto (appearance, odor or taste) most affect subjects’ perception of sensory attributes by observation of brain hemodynamics in relation to subjects’ preference for Natto.FindingsIn this experiment, we defined each subject’s changes in brain hemodynamics as (+) or (−) corresponding to an increase or a decrease in total hemoglobin concentration after stimuli compared to that before stimuli. As a result, there was no relation between preference for Natto and change in brain hemodynamics by the stimuli of “looking at” or “smelling”, while there was a significant relationship between preference and stimulus of “ingestion”; (+) : (−) = 21:15 in the subjects of the “favorite” group and (+):(−) = 30:7 in the subjects of the “non-favorite” group (P = 0.034).ConclusionThis result indicated that characteristic “taste” of Natto most affects preference for Natto.
Highlights
Aspects of recent human nutritional evolution have been a bio-cultural process in which learned cultural practices are critical to a wide acceptance of particular food products [1]
Food appearance, food odor and food texture are categorized into “intrinsic factors”, “characteristics of the food” and “perception of sensory attributes” [3], and are recognized as very important factors that influence individual food choice. In this experiment we examined which characteristic of Natto - appearance, odor or taste - most affects perception of sensory attributes by monitoring brain hemodynamics in order to find the most offensive factor for the people who answered the questionnaire unfavorably with regard to Natto consumption
The Chisquare test showed that there was a significant association in the “ingestion” phase (P = 0.034), while there was no significant association between food preference and change in hemodynamics in the “looking at” (P = 0.398) and “smelling” phase (P = 0.808)
Summary
Aspects of recent human nutritional evolution have been a bio-cultural process in which learned cultural practices are critical to a wide acceptance of particular food products [1] This bio-cultural process may cause non-uniform distribution of food preferences between traditionally and culturally different areas in a population. As Natto is produced by fermentation of steamed soybeans with a bacillus, it contains high quality proteins and large amounts of bacterial menaquinone 7 (MK-7, a bioactive form of vitamin K2). Because of these nutritional advantages, dieticians and Natto producers have campaigned for greater consumption of Natto in Kansai and the Chugoku area, but its consumption is still less than that in the other areas. We determined which characteristic of Natto (appearance, odor or taste) most affect subjects’ perception of sensory attributes by observation of brain hemodynamics in relation to subjects’ preference for Natto
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