Sensory perception across the lifespan
19 Dietary Taste Patterns
A new area of research in sensory science is investigating dietary taste patterns. Shifts in food intake can affect health on a population level. However, shifts in food patterns and product reformulation may also result in shifts in the overall taste of the diet.
A diet consists of multiple foods with different taste intensities. For example, if you follow a vegan diet, your dietary pattern may consist of more neutral-tasting foods, such as pulses and less savoury-tasting foods, such as meat and cheese compared to an omnivorous diet. Eating according to the national guidelines will also increase your intake of neutral-tasting foods, such as vegetables, and lower your intake of sweet and salty foods.
To understand the effects of shifts in diets and their effect on the taste of diets, both food intake and food taste intensity values can be combined to get a good insight into dietary taste patterns. As taste is an important driver of intake, having insight into the effects of certain diets on taste may also give us a better understanding of why it is difficult to adhere to certain dietary guidelines.
taste databases
To create dietary taste patterns, sensory techniques are combined with dietary assessment techniques from nutritional science. Dietary intake data are combined with taste databases, instead of nutrient databases. Taste databases have information on the taste instead of the nutrient composition of the food.
Example 6 – Taste, Fat and Texture Database
Here you can find the Dutch Taste, Fat and Texture database and its background information This database, built by Teo et al. (2018), has taste intensity values of the most consumed Dutch foods[1]. Explore the taste database to see whether peanutbutter is a sweet, savoury or salt food, or to see whether brussels sprouts is more bitter than beer or coffee.
The typical Dutch dietary taste pattern
In Figure 15 you can see the amount of energy derived from six distinct groups of foods in the Netherlands according to the Dutch food consumption survey. These groups were formed based on cluster analyses; foods that were most similar in taste entered the same group. The groups that could be distinguished were fat, sweet/sour, neutral, salt/umami/fat, and bitter. The data showed that typical Dutch diet consists predominantly of neutral-tasting foods. These neutral foods include vegetables and staple foods, such as bread. In addition, men have a higher intake of foods from the salt/umami/fat and bitter taste groups while, women eat more sweet/sour foods [2].
Figure 15. Distribution of intake across taste clusters: dietary taste patterns of Dutch men and women.
Source: Langeveld et al. (2019)[3].
Dietary taste patterns of populations
Dietary taste patterns can be assessed of specific populations, to find out how diets differ in terms of taste. For example, in Malaysia, 50% of commonly consumed foods have a savoury taste (i.e., food items from the salt/umami/fat taste cluster), while in the Netherlands this is only 25%[4]. Since describing food intake based on taste is still a new area of research, future studies should explore how dietary taste patterns differ across other countries and cultures.
(OLD)
Shifts in food intake can greatly affect health on a population level. However, shifts in food patterns may also result in shifts in the overall taste of the diet. A diet consists of multiple foods with different taste intensities. For example, if you follow a vegan diet, your dietary pattern may consist of less savory-tasting foods, such as meat and cheese, and more neutral-tasting foods, such as pulses. Eating according to the national guidelines will also increase your intake of neutral-tasting foods, such as vegetables, and lower your intake of sweet and salty foods.
To be able to say something about the effects of shifts in diets and their effect on the taste of diets, both food intake and food taste intensity values can be combined to get a good insight into dietary taste patterns. As taste is an important driver of intake, having insight into the effects of certain diets on taste, may also give us a better understanding of why it is difficult to adhere to certain guidelines.
taste databases
Teo et al. (2018) have, for example, assessed taste intensity values of the most commonly consumed Dutch and Malaysian foods and compiled these in a so-called taste database.[5] This database is comparable to food composition databases, with the difference that it contains taste values instead of nutrients. Based on the taste values groups of foods similar in taste can be formed. Here you can find the Dutch SVT database and its background information.
The typical Dutch dietary taste pattern
The typical Dutch diet consists of mainly neutral-tasting foods, comprising of vegetables and staple foods. Below you will see the amount of energy derived from 6 different distinct groups of foods, based on their taste properties, that is fat, sweet/sour, neutral, salt/umami/fat and bitter tasting foods. Men have higher intake of salt/umami/fat and bitter foods compared to women.
Dietary taste patterns across the globe
Although the foods available across the globe are comparable in taste intensities, there are great differences in dietary taste patterns across the globe. For example, in Malaysia, 50% of commonly consumed foods have a savory taste (that is food items from the salt/umami/fat taste cluster), whereas in the Netherlands this is only 25%.
- Teo, P. S., van Langeveld, A. W., Pol, K., Siebelink, E., de Graaf, C., Yan, S. W., & Mars, M. (2018). Similar taste-nutrient relationships in commonly consumed Dutch and Malaysian foods. Appetite, 125, 32-41. ↵
- van Langeveld, A. W., Teo, P. S., Mars, M., Feskens, E. J., de Graaf, C., & de Vries, J. H. (2019). Evaluation of dietary taste patterns as assessed by FFQ against 24-h recalls and biomarkers of exposure. European journal of clinical nutrition, 73(1), 132-140. ↵
- van Langeveld, A. W., Teo, P. S., Mars, M., Feskens, E. J., de Graaf, C., & de Vries, J. H. (2019). Evaluation of dietary taste patterns as assessed by FFQ against 24-h recalls and biomarkers of exposure. European journal of clinical nutrition, 73(1), 132-140. ↵
- Teo, P. S., van Langeveld, A. W., Pol, K., Siebelink, E., de Graaf, C., Yan, S. W., & Mars, M. (2018). Similar taste-nutrient relationships in commonly consumed Dutch and Malaysian foods. Appetite, 125, 32-41. ↵
- Teo, P. S., van Langeveld, A. W., Pol, K., Siebelink, E., de Graaf, C., Yan, S. W., & Mars, M. (2018). Similar taste-nutrient relationships in commonly consumed Dutch and Malaysian foods. Appetite, 125, 32-41. ↵