Identification of key factors in texture aversion and acceptance

All five senses contribute to the experience of eating, giving feedback on whether to continue or stop the process of consumption. Sensory feedback loops help the consumer modulate food ingestion by determining nutritional value and possible hazards. Texture is one sense integral to the eating process that may lead to a food being accepted or rejected. However, which specific oral textural features contribute to overall acceptance and rejection of a food is not well understood. In our first study, we used three different cultures, Poland, U.S.A., and Singapore, to explore common texture features in food. Our results show that all three cultures were twice as likely to mention texture combinations (multiple textures) with a texture contrast when describing foods, they liked, in comparison to foods they disliked. However, the western countries did not prefer extremely diverse texture combinations unlike the Asian country. In a second study, we measured the motivations and sensory attributes that lead to food rejection and specific texture qualities within rejected foods. Our results demonstrate unpleasant sensory attributes represents the largest reason people reject to eat a food with 94% of individuals rejecting a food due to its texture, a rate comparable to flavor-based rejection. This may be due to the mere number of aversive texture terms (outpacing liked terms) and the same food may be rejected due to a single or combination of texture terms. However, individual differences exist with touch sensitivity increasing motivations to reject and influencing the relationship primary eating senses (including texture) have with rejection as well as clusters of individuals rejecting foods due to different texture types (e.g. brittleness/elasticity or hardness/fat content). Together, these studies show the complexity of oral textures in food perception which influence adult’s food choice.