Food Quality and Preference最新文献

Due to their nutritional value, insects are increasingly proposed as alternative food sources to address nutritional deficiencies. To better understand their potential for young children, this study aims to compare four insect-based instant porridges (termites and grasshoppers) and a standard ’control’ instant porridge to examine how information about the health benefits and composition of the insect-based porridges impacts sensory perceptions and evoked emotions. A between-subjects design was set up using 337 mothers with children aged 6–23 months in western Kenya, randomly assigned to a control and informed condition. This study found that information had a negative significant effect on the liking of flavour and mouthfeel of insect-based instant porridges, but no significant effect on overall liking and the liking of the aroma. However, information had a positive significant effect on participants appreciation of sensory attributes such as adhesiveness, nutty mouthfeel and thickness of insect-based instant porridges. Regarding the effect of information on sensory evaluation, differences were reported depending on the type of porridge. Those informed mainly criticised the fishy aroma and fishy flavour in the porridges. In addition, the provision of information had a limited, albeit negative, influence on the emotions evoked by some types of instant porridge. The participants associated positive emotions with the porridges after tasting but the intensity of several positive emotions was lower in the informed group.

Can memory of eco-labeling bias how consumption is perceived and influence subsequent consumer decisions? We report three experiments showing that the perceived environmental friendliness of simulated shopping sequences is disproportionately influenced by what happens at the end of the sequence. For example, sequences that ended with a high carbon footprint item were perceived as less environmentally friendly than other sequences with the same content but with items in different order—a recency effect (Experiments 1–3). Judgments depended more on how often environmentally significant items were purchased than on the quantity of those items (Experiment 2). Furthermore, after completing a shopping sequence that was perceived as relatively harmful to the environment, participants were more prone to select a comparably expensive eco-labeled item over a cheaper but less environmentally friendly item in subsequent purchase decisions—a spillover effect (Experiment 3). The results stress the role of memory in environmentally significant consumer behavior.

The production of healthy food is determined by consumer demand, so it’s important to understand the patterns of consumer behavior when purchasing these items. This study evaluated the purchase behavior of consumers toward healthy food that lives in Mashhad-Iran. The sample size was 359 households, and the information on the sample was collected from an online questionnaire in August 2022. The results of the generalized ordered logit model showed that the increase in age, household income, healthy product awareness level, having a special diet, attention to the food freshness, the level of advertising and nutritional knowledge increased people’s desire to buy healthy food. Increasing household size led to a decrease in desire for people. It was also found that trust in the health of these foods had a positive effect on the tendency to purchase healthy food. Following the study, recommendations made to accelerate the demand for healthy food, which include using reliable food labels, increasing advertising, supporting healthy food producers, and increasing the stores of healthy products.

This study investigates consumers’ perception of plant-based and meat-based ready meals, focusing on ratings of tastiness, freshness, healthiness, and willingness to pay (WTP). Our findings reveal that plant-based ready meals are perceived as looking less tasty, and consumers exhibit a decreased WTP when compared to meat-based alternatives, despite the plant-based options being perceived as healthier. We further explore whether the visual cueing of a hot meal on food packaging can influence consumer evaluations. Specifically, we examine the effect of adding steam − a visual indicator of heat − to images on frozen food packaging. The results demonstrate that the presence of steam enhances perceived food temperature and freshness ratings for both plant-based and meat-based ready meals. Notably, increased temperature perception leads to a higher WTP, but only for plant-based products. Mediation analysis reveals that for plant-based ready meals, the impact of heightened temperature perception on WTP is mediated by increased perceived tastiness. These findings have significant implications for nudging consumers towards healthier food choices. By leveraging visual temperature cues in packaging design, it may be possible to enhance the appeal of plant-based ready meals, thereby encouraging more sustainable and health-conscious consumer behaviour.

Reducing portion sizes, has great potential to reduce food intake and plate waste. At all-you-can-eat buffets people tend to take larger portions of food than they would at home or at a general restaurant. Increased portion sizes can lead to people leaving uneaten food behind – contributing to food-related greenhouse gas emissions. This study develops and evaluates, in two online experiments, a meal guidance intervention to assist consumers with their meal choices. To measure behavioural intentions, we created a simulated buffet scenario where participants see a range of food items (as they would at a buffet) and are then asked to choose which foods and how many portions of each food item they would take. Compared to a control group, offering meal guidance did not appear to significantly decrease the number of grams or calories taken from the simulated buffet. However, there were significant differences in the number of grams and calories taken from the buffet when comparing those who at least followed the guidance in some way, and those who did not. Our research has methodological implications: it presents a novel and easy to implement measure of hypothetical buffet food choices and portioning that can be used in survey experiments. Future research could focus on developing strategies to prompt guests to follow meal guidance.

There is a dearth of research on how food serves a tool for the formation and enaction of the social identities of mixed-race people, how these social identities shape the unique food dispositions and behaviors of mixed-race individuals, and how, by virtue of their liminal status, mixed-race consumers are apt to blend and adapt food behaviors from their dual heritages, and subsequently diffuse these adaptations into the broader population. This mixed methods study, entailing semi-structured interviews with mixed-race individuals, followed by an international survey involving 645 mixed-race consumers living in Canada, the USA, and the UK, aims to address these knowledge gaps. Induced from the qualitative data, we disclose four overarching themes regarding the food practices and perceptions, in relation to our mixed-race informants’ identity and their position astride two cultures: (1) ‘you are what you eat’ (food as instrumental for ethnic identity), (2) ‘mixing the best of both worlds’ (integration and transmutation), (3) situational authenticity and awareness of cultural appropriation, and (4) double marginalization, denigration, and self-valorization. The quantitative findings revealed that blending cultural customs, blending food practices, and using products to express mixed-race identity, were all a positive function of the racialized-minority parent’s ethnic maintenance, as well as both independent and interdependent self-construals—demonstrating that racial and cultural blending promulgates these behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications and directions for future research are elucidated.

In the studies to date that have examined the effect of taste on social affect, sweet taste has been reported to increase agreeableness (Meier et al., 2012), and bitter taste has been reported to increase hostility (Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2014). However, no study to date has examined changes to both agreeableness and hostility after tasting sweet and bitter substances, nor how the order of self-reporting these feelings, or individual differences in taste sensitivity, may influence the results. Our pre-registered study addressed these questions in 99 female undergraduates. Participants were randomly assigned to taste one of six sweet, bitter and neutral tastants, including those used in prior research on this topic, and then immediately completed the agreeableness and hostility scales used in past research, the order of which was counterbalanced across participants. Participants then evaluated all six tastants on various hedonic scales, and a 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) test of taste sensitivity was administered. Statistical analyses did not reveal any association between sweet, or any tastant and agreeableness scores. Hostility ratings were increased after participants tasted bitter, but only when this scale was administered before the agreeableness scale. Sensitivity to PROP did not moderate any of the findings. Based on prior work on self-affirmation and affect (e.g., Lindsay & Creswell, 2014), our results suggest that priming a prosocial self-schema (e.g., agreeableness) can eliminate the hostility induced by bitter taste. However, other explanations are possible and future work should investigate factors including measures of personality states vs. traits, and the timing between tasting and affect assessments.

Team diversity must be promoted in many societies. While prior studies have emphasized the consequential impact of diverse teams on businesses, particularly in Western countries known for their racial and gender diversity, there is a notable gap in research exploring the role of team diversity on consumer evaluations among non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) consumers. Drawing upon signaling theory, our research aimed to investigate the influence of team diversity on consumer evaluations of both typical and novel food products within the non-WEIRD context of Japanese consumers. Japan, with its relatively low diversity in terms of gender and cultural ethnicity compared with North American and European countries, offers a unique background for exploring diversity issues. Through three online studies, we examined the impact of team ethnic diversity (Studies 1 and 2) and team age/gender diversity (Study 3) on purchase intentions toward typical and novel products. Our findings reveal that in Japan, information about gender and age diversity positively influences the purchase intention of food products, regardless of the novelty of the product. Notably, no such effect was observed for racial diversity. These results suggest that the positive influence of gender and age, but not racial diversity, can be generalized to non-WEIRD Japanese samples, contributing valuable insights into understanding team diversity dynamics in consumers’ evaluations of purchase intentions.

Overweight or obesity, often linked to excessive consumption of unhealthy foods, increases the risk of developing various chronic diseases. The present study aims to systematically investigate the effect of suffering from objectification on a preference for indulgent food. We found across five studies (Chinese participants, N = 1011) that individuals who endure a higher level of objectification exhibit a greater intention to consume indulgent foods, employing a longitudinal survey (Study 1) and a series of fully controlled experiments (Studies 2a-3). Specifically, Study 1 revealed a positive association between experiencing objectification and the consumption of indulgent foods. Studies 2a-2c further demonstrated a causal relationship between experiencing objectification and a preference for indulgent food using different manipulation paradigms and measurements. In Study 3, we replicated this effect and further tested the mediating role of emotional distress in the process. Taken together, our findings suggest that objectification, as an inconspicuous interpersonal maltreatment, heightens individuals’ emotional distress and then fosters their preference for indulgent food.