A cross-cultural perspective on feeling good in the context of foods and beverages

Abstract

The aim of the present research was to explore consumers' conceptualization of feeling good in relation to food and beverages from a cross-cultural perspective. Participants from 14 countries across 5 continents and covering 10 languages (N=8,325) responded to an online survey including word association and free listing tasks related to feeling good in the context of food and beverages. Results were analyzed using inductive coding: a list of main codes was generated in English for each of the tasks, after which native speakers for each language coded the responses. Codes were grouped into categories reflecting common themes from which eight dimensions were identified. Results showed that in the context of foods and beverages, feeling good was mainly associated with specific foods and sensory and hedonic properties. Across the 14 countries, 'Sweet and fat food', 'Fruit and vegetables', and 'Protein food' were the three food categories most associated with feeling good. Emotional aspects of food consumption ('Taste good' and emotions) were also relevant. Health and nutrition-related aspects were more relevant for consumers when they were asked to think about how foods and beverages would make them feel good in the future. In other words, food-related feeling good seems to be mainly driven by sensory pleasure at present, but it is also related to nutrition and health in the future. Differences in the strength of the associations between feeling good and the identified categories were found between countries, in line with the existence of cultural differences in food habits, as well as in the importance people attach to the characteristics of foods and beverages. Results from the present work provide insights on the impact of eating and drinking on feeling good in terms of emotional, physical and social aspects, and increase knowledge about the way food and drink can contribute to general well-being.

Physicochemical Properties and Consumer Acceptance of Bread Enriched with Alternative Proteins

“…From the 327 respondents, 3924 terms, related to the three stimuli presented (Figure 1), were elicited with a mean of 3.7 words per stimulus and consumer. Terms were grouped into 586 valid codes, assembled into 112 categories, and these categories in 10 dimensions based on previous studies [54,66]. Only 23 categories, grouped in eight dimensions, were mentioned by at least 10% of the consumers [63], and were included in the analysis ( Table 5).…”

“…WA is used in sensory science to understand how consumers perceive novel or abstract concepts [58]. This mental categorisation tool has been studied to develop new products [52,53,[56][57][58][59][60][61], to evaluate new packaging [55,62], and undefined concepts [58,59,66,87]. These studies concluded that WA provided interesting and valuable information for gathering consumer perceptions [104].…”

“…From a cross-cultural perspective Sulmont-Rossé al. [66], investigating the concept of "feeling good" in a food context, found that the "sensory and hedonic" aspects were the most salient associations.…”

Post-Ingestive Sensations Driving Post-Ingestive Food Pleasure: A Cross-Cultural Consumer Study Comparing Denmark and China

“…It seems that the Danish consumers experience PIFP as more related to the body's physical needs, whereas the Chinese consumers experience PIFP as more connected to the body's 'mental' needs. Previous research has also reported differences in the values associated to food and eating between Western countries and China [5,6], e.g., results have pointed towards cultural differences in the way we associate for instance wellbeing and 'feeling good'. Sulmont-Rossé et al (2019) report cross-cultural perspectives on 'feeling good' in the context of food using qualitative approaches.…”

“…Considering the globalization and emergent food markets, where foods are exported beyond national borders, we need to take into consideration cultural aspects when seeking to understand human eating behaviors on the respective markets [2]. Consequently, cross-cultural research has become increasingly more pertinent within Sensory and Consumer Science [3,4], and several studies suggest that cultural differences exist in the way we perceive food, in our associations with specific foods, and also within food-related concepts [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The contribution and importance of cross-cultural research studies thus bring new perspectives in the domain of Sensory and Consumer Science, and it contributes to the development and understanding of various food concepts.…”