Basic taste sensitivity, eating behaviour, food propensity and BMI of preadolescent children: How are they related?

Background: Taste sensitivity has been reported to influence children's eating behaviour and contribute to their food preferences and intake. This study aimed to investigate the associations between taste sensitivity, eating behaviour, food frequency and BMI (Body Mass Index) in preadolescents.

Methods: Preadolescents' taste sensitivity was measured by detection threshold of sweetness (sucrose), sourness (citric acid), saltiness (sodium chloride), bitterness (caffeine, quinine), and umami (monosodium glutamate).

Bringing down barriers to children's healthy eating: a critical review of opportunities, within a complex food system.

This narrative review revises the scientific evidence of recent years on healthy eating in children and adolescents, making sense of promising avenues of action, from a food system perspective. A conceptual framework is provided to better understand how eating habits of children and adolescents are shaped to identify key multisectoral approaches that should be implemented to promote healthier diets. The following influencing factors are discussed: individual factors (physiological and psychological factors, food preferences and food literacy competencies), factors within the personal and socio-cultural food environments, external food environments, and the supply chain.

Comparing a product-specific versus a general emoji list to measure consumers' emotional associations with chocolate and predict food choice.

Emoji have been proposed as a way to get additional insights in how consumers perceive food products. Recent works have indicated that emoji are able to provide distinctive emotional associations with food products, regardless of whether one is using the check-all-that-apply (CATA) or the rate-all-that-apply (RATA) scaling approach. Typically, in examining emotional associations one can work with either a general list which can be used with all food products or a product-specific emotion list.

Bacterial levels and diversity in kitchen sponges and dishwashing brushes used by consumers.

Aims: The purpose of the work was to investigate bacterial levels and diversity as well as survival of Salmonella in used dish washing sponges and brushes and identify consumer practices that can potentially explain bacterial status of these items.

Methods And Results: Used washing up utensils were collected from consumers. The bacterial numbers (TVC) were very variable with an extremely high median level (10.

Does Responsiveness to Basic Tastes Influence Preadolescents' Food Liking? Investigating Taste Responsiveness Segment on Bitter-Sour-Sweet and Salty-Umami Model Food Samples.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationships between taste responsiveness and food liking in preadolescents. Model food samples of grapefruit juice (GF) and vegetable broth (VB) modified with four additions of sucrose and sodium chloride, respectively, were employed. Intensity perception for sweetness, sourness, and bitterness were measured in GF while saltiness and umami were measured in VB.

Intake of Fibre-Associated Foods and Texture Preferences in Relation to Weight Status Among 9-12 Years Old Children in 6 European Countries.

Plant foods, rich in fibre, can offer textures that children find difficult to orally manipulate, resulting in low preferences but are important for a healthy diet and prevention of overweight in children. Our aim was to investigate preferences for food texture, intake of fibre-associated foods and the relation to BMI. Three hundred thirty European children (9-12 years, 54% female) indicated their texture preferences using the Child-Food-Texture-Preference- Questionnaire (CFTPQ), and their parents responded on fibre-associated food consumption and anthropometric information.

Yuck, This Biscuit Looks Lumpy! Neophobic Levels and Cultural Differences Drive Children's Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) Descriptions and Preferences for High-Fibre Biscuits.

Food neophobia influences food choice in school-aged children. However, little is known about how children with different degrees of food neophobia perceive food and to what extent different sensory attributes drive their liking. This paper explores liking and sensory perception of fibre-rich biscuits in school-aged children ( = 509, age 9-12 years) with different degrees of food neophobia and from five different European countries (Finland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom).

Dishwashing sponges and brushes: Consumer practices and bacterial growth and survival.

Sponges are frequently used in kitchens and have been shown to harbor large numbers of bacteria, occasionally also pathogens. Less is known about kitchen brushes regarding usage and presence of bacteria. In the present study, the use of sponges and brushes was studied in a survey among 9966 European consumers in ten countries, and growth and survival of bacteria in sponges and brushes were examined in laboratory experiments.

Investigating the Relationships between Basic Tastes Sensitivities, Fattiness Sensitivity, and Food Liking in 11-Year-Old Children.

This study investigates the relationships between basic tastes and fattiness sensitivity and food liking in 11-year-old children. The basic taste sensitivity of 106 children was measured using different methods, namely detection (DT) and recognition (RT) thresholds, and taste responsiveness. Caffeine and quinine (bitter), sucrose (sweet), citric acid (sour), sodium chloride (salty), and monosodium glutamate (umami) were investigated for DT and RT at five concentrations in water solutions.

Cooking chicken at home: Common or recommended approaches to judge doneness may not assure sufficient inactivation of pathogens.

About one third of foodborne illness outbreaks in Europe are acquired in the home and eating undercooked poultry is among consumption practices associated with illness. The aim of this study was to investigate whether actual and recommended practices for monitoring chicken doneness are safe. Seventy-five European households from five European countries were interviewed and videoed while cooking chicken in their private kitchens, including young single men, families with infants/in pregnancy and elderly over seventy years.

Organic Consumer Choices for Nutrient Labels on Dried Strawberries among Different Health Attitude Segments in Norway, Romania, and Turkey.

Consumer interest towards healthy food is driving the growth of the organic food market because consumers perceive organic food products to improve their personal health. Berries have well-known health benefits and show increasing market shares in European markets. This manuscript investigates for the first time how health attitudes relate to organic consumers' choices for nutrient labels of organic dried strawberry products.

Effects of Varying the Color, Aroma, Bitter, and Sweet Levels of a Grapefruit-Like Model Beverage on the Sensory Properties and Liking of the Consumer.

Color, aroma, sweet, and bitter tastes contribute to the sensory perception of grapefruit juice. Consumers differ about liking grapefruit. A reason is the bitter taste that characterize the fruit.

A cross-cultural perspective on feeling good in the context of foods and beverages.

The aim of the present research was to explore consumers' conceptualization of feeling good in relation to food and beverages from a cross-cultural perspective. Participants from 14 countries across 5 continents and covering 10 languages (N = 8325) responded to an online survey including word association and free listing tasks related to feeling good in the context of food and beverages. Results were analyzed using inductive coding: a list of main codes was generated in English for each of the tasks, after which native speakers for each language coded the responses.

The development of basic taste sensitivity and preferences in children.

This study aims at understanding how preference and sensitivity to the basic tastes develop in the preschool years, and how the two relate to each other. To expand on the existing literature regarding taste preferences conducted in cross-sectional studies, a longitudinal design was applied with children from age four to six years old. During the springs of 2015, 2016, and 2017, 131 children born in 2011 were tested in their kindergartens.

Consumers in a Sustainable Food Supply Chain (COSUS): Understanding Consumer Behavior to Encourage Food Waste Reduction.

Consumers are directly and indirectly responsible for a significant fraction of food waste which, for a large part, could be avoided if they were willing to accept food that is suboptimal, i.e., food that deviates in sensory characteristics (odd shape, discoloration), or that has a best-before date which is approaching or has passed, but that is still perfectly fine to eat.

Comparing Manual Counting to Automated Image Analysis for the Assessment of Fungiform Papillae Density on Human Tongue.

The density of fungiform papillae (FPD) on the human tongue is currently taken as index for responsiveness to oral chemosensory stimuli. Visual analysis of digital tongue picture and manual counting by trained operators represents the most popular technique for FPD assessment. Methodological issues mainly due to operator bias are considered among factors accounting for the uncertainty about the relationships between FPD and responsiveness to chemosensory stimuli.

Diet and Physical Activity Apps: Perceived Effectiveness by App Users.

Background: Diet and physical activity apps are two types of health apps that aim to promote healthy eating and energy expenditure through monitoring of dietary intake and physical activity. No clear evidence showing the effectiveness of using these apps to promote healthy eating and physical activity has been previously reported.

Objective: This study aimed to identify how diet and physical activity (PA) apps affected their users.

One technology does not fit all: profiling consumers of tender and tenderised beef steaks.

New production technologies can help the beef sector to improve eating quality, in particular the tenderness, of low-value meat cuts. This paper aims at profiling potential consumers for unprocessed tenderloin M. Psoas major, muscle profiled M.

Consumers' acceptance of innovations in traditional cheese. A comparative study in France and Norway.

This study explores consumers' acceptance of innovations in traditional cheese in France (n=120) and Norway (n=119). The respondents were presented with 16 photographs of a traditional cheese from their respective countries, varying according to six factors: pasteurisation, organic production, omega-3, packaging, price and appropriateness. For each of the scenarios the consumers indicated their willingness to buy the cheese on a nine-point scale.