At the beginning of a meal, the organoleptic qualities of foods stimulate consumption. All the senses participate in this stimulation: taste and smell in the first instance, but also sight, hearing and feel.
The perception of foods is defined by a range of sensory dimensions: aroma and taste (which make up the flavour of the food), texture, temperature, visual appearance or auditory stimulation (crispness, crunchiness), etc. Other sensory factors, such as the perception of portion size, also affect the amount of food consumed.
The sensorality of foods participates in determining meal size and the stimulation of consumption through a variety of mechanisms.
Dietary preferences guide the choice of foods as a function of needs
Although it is universally known that newborns will accept sweetness and reject bitterness, an immense interpersonal diversity of tastes and food aversions exists in adults.
Over and above innate predispositions to acceptance or rejection, food preferences, tastes and dislikes are acquired through a learning mechanism that allows each individual to associate the sensory qualities of a food with the metabolic consequences that follow its ingestion. Thus a digestive upset can trigger an aversion to a food.
This learning mechanism naturally induces a preference for high-energy foods. For example, in children who were offered yoghurts with different energy contents and distinctive flavours, it was seen that the development of a preference for the flavour that was arbitrarily associated with the yoghurt with the highest energy content.
Sensory characteristics are thus a guide that allow individuals to choose foods and consumption as a function of their present or anticipated nutritional needs. The dietary preferences formed by learning are a determinant factor in meal size.
Satisfaction depends on the sensory quality of the foods consumed during a meal
The sensory qualities of foods are also important to determining meal size, as an essential factor in satisfaction. During ingestion of a meal, the pleasant characteristic of a food diminishes during its consumption; if the food is consumed until the individual is satisfied, the pleasure of eating becomes null.
To a great extent, satisfaction is specific to the sensory characteristics of the food being consumed. This specific satisfaction is not influenced by its energy or nutritional content, but by volume. At a constant energy content, a larger volume of food ingested induces a greater feeling of satisfaction. And inversely, at a constant volume, variations in the energy or nutritional content have no effect on satisfaction.
Thus a food with different sensory characteristics can then restimulate the appetite for consumption. For this reason, the variety of sensations must also be taken into account when determining meal size.
The environment of the eater influences satiety
Following a meal, there starts a period during which consumption is inhibited. This interruption in consumption, which forms part of the "satiety cascade" and ends with the return of hunger, reflects more or less intense or prolonged satiety. The sensory qualities of the foods consumed during the previous meal induce specific sensory satiety.
The presence in the environment of attractive and available foods is likely to restart consumption, even in a person who does not yet feel hungry. "Eating without hunger" is a behaviour that can affect weight control. Some people are particularly susceptible to the influence of this sensory stimulation to eat.
(1) France Bellisle will be speaking on the subject of: "The impact of sensorality on satiety and satisfaction" in the context of the symposium on "Sensory perception and consumer behaviour", organised by INRA at the Salon international de l'alimentation (SIAL) on October 22 2008.
Source :
Des qualités organoleptiques des aliments aux choix alimentaires
France Bellisle
Cahiers de nutrition et de diététique vol 41, n°5, 2006.
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