The objective of this study was to investigate the factors affecting interindividual variation in the sense of taste among Finnish adults. Two components of taste function were examined with five established taste modalities: taste sensitivity and capability to identify taste modalities. The potential explanatory factors for taste function included gender, age, BMI, and smoking. In total, 205 volunteers participated in the study at the sensory evaluation laboratory of Functional Foods Forum. Older age (>50 years) and male gender predicted a less sensitive sense of taste in general. For umami sensitivity, high BMI along with older age predicted lower sensitivity. Additionally, taste recognition and sensitivity were related in bitter and umami tastes. Older age was also associated with a poorer capability in taste recognition. Sour–bitter, umami–salty, and salty–umami were the most frequent taste confusions.Practical applications: These results showed individual differences in taste perception among adult. This study can help to understand diversity in personal eating practices and food choices, which can be utilized in personal nutritional guidance and well‐being applications. We suggest that umami should be included in studies concerning taste function. There is high variation in umami perception and as umami may increase food palatability, it can be an important element in improving diet especially among elderly people. In sensory research, panelists' interindividual variation in taste perception can be wide and should be acknowledged by careful design of studies.

As taste perception varies between individuals, it might be important in explaining food consumption behavior. Previous studies have focused on sensitivity to the bitter tastant PROP (6-n-propylthiouracil) concerning eating with little attention paid to other tastants. For the first time, connections between food consumption behavior, pleasantness, and taste sensitivity are studied with five taste modalities. Sensitivity to bitterness, sourness, umami, saltiness, and sweetness as well as an overall taste sensitivity score was determined with intensity evaluation for 199 Finnish adults. Recalled pleasantness and food consumption behavior were enquired with online questionnaires. Consumption concerned intake of vegetables, fruits, and berries; use-frequency of specific foods; and tendency to mask or modify tastes of foods. All modality-specific taste sensitivities were related to some consumption behavior but none to recalled pleasantness. A higher taste sensitivity score indicated avoidance of coffee, lower consumption of pungent foods, and a more frequent habit of adding ketchup to a meal. In conclusion, it may be more informative to study the influence of taste sensitivity on food consumption behavior with taste modalities separately rather than with a general indicator of taste sensitivity. Additionally, these results highlight the importance of studying actual behavior toward food and not just liking.

The color of food is important for flavor perception and food selection. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the visual color perception of liquid samples among Finnish adult consumers by their background variables. Participants (n = 205) ranked six different colored solutions just by looking according to four attributes: from most to least pleasant, healthy, sweet and sour. The color sample rated most frequently as the most pleasant was red (37%), the most healthy white (57%), the most sweet red and orange (34% both) and the most sour yellow (54%). Ratings of certain colors differed between gender, age, body mass index (BMI) and education groups. Females regarded the red color as the sweetest more often than males (p = 0.013) while overweight subjects rated the orange as the sweetest more often than normal weight subjects (p = 0.029). Personal characteristics may be associated with some differences in color associations.

The food experience is multisensory and multisensory external stimuli may affect food choice and emotions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of a multisensory eating environment on food choice, intake and the emotional states of the subjects in a salad lunch buffet setting. A total of 30 female subjects consumed a salad lunch twice in the multisensory laboratory. The two test conditions (control and multisensory condition with environmental stimuli) were randomized and the visits were scheduled one week apart. Subjects selected and ate a meal from a salad buffet including 14 food items and the intake of each item was weighed. They answered an online questionnaire about the meal and their emotional states (20 different emotion terms) after the lunch. There was no significant difference in the food consumption between the control and multisensory conditions. The subjects were very satisfied with their lunch for both study visits but the pleasantness of the eating environment was rated higher under the multisensory condition. In emotional terms, the subjects selected the term “happy” significantly more frequently under the multisensory condition compared with the control. In conclusion, the multisensory eating environment in this study was not related to food intake but may be associated with positive emotions. The effect of the eating environment on food choice and experience deserves further study with a larger study population in a real lunch restaurant setting.

Chemesthesis is a part of the flavor experience of foods. Chemesthetic perception is studied to understand its effect on food-related behavior and health. Thus, the objective of this research was to study individual differences in chemesthetic perception. Our study involved sensory tests of three chemesthetic modalities (astringency, pungency, and cooling). Participants (N = 196) evaluated the intensity of samples in different concentrations using a line scale under sensory laboratory conditions. Aluminum ammonium sulfate, capsaicin, and menthol were used as the prototypic chemesthetic compounds. The participants were divided into sensitivity groups in different chemesthetic modalities by hierarchical clustering based on their intensity ratings. In addition, an oral chemesthesis sensitivity score was determined to represent the generalized chemesthesis sensitivity. The results showed that people can perceive chemesthesis on different intensity levels. There were significantly positive correlations between (1) sensitivity scores for oral chemesthesis and taste as well as (2) each chemesthesis and taste modalities. Moreover, based on the multinomial logistic regression model, significant interactions between oral chemesthesis and taste sensitivity were discovered. Our findings showed that people can be classified into different oral chemesthesis sensitivity groups. The methods and results of this study can be utilized to investigate associations with food-related behavior and health.

Sweetness drives the consumption of added sugars, so understanding how to best measure sweet hedonics is important for developing strategies to lower sugar intake. However, methods to assess hedonic response to sweetness vary, making results across studies difficult to integrate. We compared methods to measure optimal sucrose concentration in 21 healthy adults (1) using paired-comparison preference tracking vs. ratings of liking, (2) with participants in the laboratory vs. at home, and (3) using aqueous solutions vs. vanilla milk. Tests were replicated on separate days to assess test-retest reliability. Test-retest reliability was similar between laboratory and home testing, but tended to be better for vanilla milk and preference tracking. Optimal sucrose concentration was virtually identical between laboratory and home, slightly lower when estimated via preference tracking, and about 50% lower in vanilla milk. However, optimal sucrose concentration correlated strongly between methods, locations, and stimuli. More than 50% of the variability in optimal sucrose concentration could be attributed to consistent differences among individuals, while much less variability was attributable to differences between methods. These results demonstrate convergent validity between methods, support testing at home, and suggest that aqueous solutions can be useful proxies for some commonly consumed beverages for measuring individual differences.