Sample temperatures can modulate both emotional responses to and sensory attributes of tomato soup samples

A consumer evaluation of salt-reduced tomato soup and vegetable juice made with grape pomace

Obesity and obesity-related illness have become an increasingly prevalent problem and there is a critical need to combat this by reducing sugar, salt, and fat consumption. Due to this concern, the food industry has been developing salt-reduced foods, however, these products need to maintain their sensory appeal and flavors, which has proven to be a challenge. Grape pomace (GP), the solids left after pressing grapes for winemaking and consisting of grape seeds and skins, has been proposed as an environmentally friendly solution that can enhance the acceptability of salt-reduced food products. However, GP is associated with a large number of flavor compounds. As such, the objective of this research is to investigate the acceptability of GP addition in salt-reduced foods. Two trials were conducted using hedonic scales and temporal check-all-that-apply (TCATA) to evaluate tomato soup (n = 88) and vegetable juice (n = 99). Each trial included a control and sample containing grape pomace. The addition of the GP decreased the consumers' overall liking and the liking of the flavor, as well as increasing consumers' perception of saltiness intensity. The samples made with GP were associated with bitterness, sourness, and wine flavor during the TCATA evaluations. The study identified that GP increased saltiness perception, however, it also adds other flavors to the food product, which decreased the acceptability of the food items. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: There is a consumer demand to create salt-reduced foods that do not have altered sensory properties. Furthermore, consumers are interested in sustainable and environmentally friendly ingredients. Grape pomace is a byproduct of the wine industry and has been proposed as an ingredient that can increase the saltiness perception of food products. Grape pomace was added to tomato soup and vegetable juice to evaluate its effect on consumer acceptability and saltiness perception. The grape pomace did increase saltiness perception, but also added bitterness, sourness, and wine flavor to the food products.

Sensory properties of thickened tomato soup enhanced with different sources of protein (whey, soy, hemp, and pea)

Thickened soup formulations were created with different proteins (hemp, soy, pea, and whey) to improve protein and fluid intake. The formulations consisted of a control soup, and soups with 6% whey protein, 6% hemp protein, 6% pea protein, and 6% soy protein by volume. The suitability of the samples for those living with dysphagia was evaluated using the international dysphagia diet standardization initiative (IDDSI) spoon tilt test and a sensory trial (51 older adults and 51 younger adults). The sensory trial used nine-point hedonic scales and check-all-that-apply to evaluate the different formulations. The sample with the whey addition was not significantly different than the control in terms of liking of flavor and texture, but it decreased the participants' overall liking. The hemp, pea, and soy decreased overall liking as well as liking of flavor and texture. They were associated with off-flavors, aftertaste, and astringency. The responses from the older and younger adults were compared and significant differences were found in their liking of the texture, with the older adults finding the formulations' texture significantly more acceptable. Overall, the study identified that hemp, pea, and soy did not create acceptable thickened soup formulations and the hemp and pea formulations did not achieve a consistency level that is acceptable for those living with dysphagia.

Review of technology advances to assess rice quality traits and consumer perception

The increase in rice consumption and demand for high-quality rice is impacted by the growth of socioeconomic status in developing countries and consumer awareness of the health benefits of rice consumption. The latter aspects drive the need for rapid, low-cost, and reliable quality assessment methods to produce high-quality rice according to consumer preference. This is important to ensure the sustainability of the rice value chain and, therefore, accelerate the rice industry toward digital agriculture. This review article focuses on the measurements of the physicochemical and sensory quality of rice, including new and emerging technology advances, particularly in the development of low-cost, non-destructive, and rapid digital sensing techniques to assess rice quality traits and consumer perceptions. In addition, the prospects for potential applications of emerging technologies (i.e., sensors, computer vision, machine learning, and artificial intelligence) to assess rice quality and consumer preferences are discussed. The integration of these technologies shows promising potential in the forthcoming to be adopted by the rice industry to assess rice quality traits and consumer preferences at a lower cost, shorter time, and more objectively compared to the traditional approaches.

The Effect of Response Conditions on Food Images-Evoked Emotions Measured Using the Valence × Arousal Circumplex-Inspired Emotion Questionnaire (CEQ)

In 2020, a single-response-based, valence × arousal circumplex-inspired emotion questionnaire (CEQ) was developed. Using a between-participants design, previous studies have found that a multiple response (MR) condition better discriminated test samples (e.g., written food names) based on their evoked emotions than a single response (SR) condition. This research, comprising Studies 1 and 2, aimed to determine the effect of response conditions (i.e., SR vs. MR) on emotional responses to food image samples, using a within-participants design. In Study 1, 105 Korean participants were asked to select a pair of emotion terms (i.e., SR condition) or select all pairs representing their evoked emotions (i.e., MR condition) from a list of 12 pairs of emotion terms of the CEQ, in response to the 14 food images. Both SR and MR conditions were tested within a remote (online) session. To minimize both a potential carry-over effect of the "within-participants design" and an influence of environmental factors in the remote testing, Study 2 asked 64 U.S. participants to do so over two separated sessions on two different days in a controlled laboratory setting. In both Studies 1 and 2, participants selected the CEQ's emotion-term pairs in the MR condition more frequently than in the SR condition, leading to the MR condition's higher capacity to discriminate test samples. While the configurations of the correspondence analysis biplots drawn in the SR and MR conditions were similar, those in the MR condition were more likely to be similar to the configurations of the principal component analysis biplots drawn from the ratings of valence and arousal for food image samples. In conclusion, this study provides robust empirical evidence that the MR condition can perform better in capturing sample differences in food-evoked emotions, while the SR condition is also effective in characterizing emotional profiles of test samples. Our findings will provide practical insights to sensory professionals, enabling them to effectively leverage the CEQ or its variants when measuring food-evoked emotions.

Impacts of Utensil Conditions on Consumer Perception and Acceptance of Food Samples Evaluated under In-Home Testing during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sensory professionals are looking for alternative ways to conduct laboratory sensory testing, especially central location testing (CLT), during the COVID-19 pandemic. One way could be conducting CLTs at home (i.e., in-home testing). It is questionable whether food samples under in-home testing should be presented in uniform utensils, as it does so under laboratory sensory testing. This study aimed to determine whether utensil conditions could affect consumer perception and acceptance of food samples evaluated under in-home testing. Sixty-eight participants (40 females and 28 males) prepared chicken-flavored ramen noodle samples and evaluated them for attribute perception and acceptance, under two utensil conditions, using either their utensils ("Personal") or uniform utensils provided ("Uniform"). Participants also rated their liking of forks/spoons, bowls, and eating environments, respectively, and attentiveness to sensory evaluation under each utensil condition. Results of the in-home testing showed that participants liked ramen noodle samples and their flavors under the "Personal" condition significantly more than under the "Uniform" condition. Ramen noodle samples evaluated under the "Uniform" condition were significantly higher in terms of saltiness than those evaluated under the "Personal" condition. Participants liked forks/spoons, bowls, and eating environments used under the "Personal" condition significantly more than those used under the "Uniform" condition. While overall likings of ramen noodle samples, evaluated under the "Personal" condition, significantly increased with an increase in hedonic ratings of forks/spoons or bowls, such significant correlations were not observed under the "Uniform" condition. In other words, providing uniform utensils (forks, spoons, and bowls) to participants in the in-home testing can reduce the influences of utensils on consumer likings of ramen noodle samples evaluated at home. In conclusion, this study suggests that sensory professionals should consider providing uniform utensils when they want to focus solely on consumer perception and acceptance of food samples by minimizing influences of environmental contexts, especially utensils, in the "in-home" testing.

Human health risk identification of petrochemical sites based on extreme gradient boosting

Petrochemical industry is a key industry of soil pollution, which presents great effects on human health and the ecological environment. It is of great significance to achieve rapid, economic and efficient health risk identification for petrochemical industry in China. In this work, an efficient method was developed based on extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) algorithm for human health risk identification, which is different from the traditional health risk assessment with complicated procedures. In this methodology, an index system of 13 indicators was established from the perspective of "sources - pathways - receptors" for risk identification. The 10-fold cross validation was used to assess the generalization performance, and the accuracy, precision and recall were employed to evaluate the performance of the algorithms. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was conducted to analyze the differences between XGBoost and other models for statistical support. The results showed that XGBoost significantly presented a better performance for health risk identification over multilayer perceptron neural network with error backpropagation training (BPNN), support vector machine (SVM), gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) and light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM), with an accuracy of 0.783. The most important features contributing to the risk identification were determined with the sequence of site location (in the industrial zone or not), site planning and production period. Great attention should be given to the petrochemical sites that are not located in the industrial zone with long production period and sensitive receptors in the health risk identification. This method has important reference significance for relevant departments to carry out soil contamination screening and health risk assessment of petrochemical sites.

Color-Induced Aroma Illusion: Color Cues Can Modulate Consumer Perception, Acceptance, and Emotional Responses toward Cooked Rice

Since rice is often cooked in many countries with different types of ingredients or seasonings, the surface colors of traditional rice meal items vary across cultural backgrounds. This study aimed to determine whether consumer perception, acceptance, willingness to eat, and emotional responses toward cooked rice samples could differ with their surface color cues. Milled rice was cooked with one of three food colorants: yellow, orange, and green, with milled (white) and un-milled (brown) rice cooked without colorants used as respective test and filler samples. Using a check-all-that-apply method, 98 rice consumers checked all aroma attributes they perceived by sniffing each of the four cooked-rice samples (white, yellow, orange, and green). They also rated the four samples with respect to attribute intensity, liking, emotional responses, and willingness to eat. The results showed that participants associated colored rice with specific ingredient-related aroma attributes (e.g., green color elicited sweet peas or spinach aromas). Color cues also affected ratings of attribute intensity, liking, willingness to eat, and emotional responses to cooked rice samples. In conclusion, this study provides empirical evidence that in the context of cooked rice consumption, color cues can elicit associated aromas and modulate consumer perception, acceptance, and evoked emotions to cooked rice.