Creating foods for older adults: Emotional responses and liking of microwave‐assisted thermal sterilization processed meals

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine emotional and liking responses to foods designed for older adults and made using microwave-assisted thermal sterilization technology (MATS). Six chicken pasta meals (three each with and without herbs) were formulated with three concentrations of salt at 100%, 75%, and 50%. Seventy-six community-dwelling older adults conducted sensory and emotional evaluations. Sensory testing involved measuring liking of various sensory attributes using a 9-point hedonic scale, Just-about-right scales to measure appropriateness of the intensity of the attributes, and check-all-thatapply questions to identify perceived flavor and texture attributes. EsSense25 methodology was used for capturing food-evoked emotional responses. Significant differences existed in all measured sensory attributes and in 14 out of the 25 tested emotions across the six meals. Liking scores for all pastas with herbs and high salt pasta with no herbs were not significantly different for all tested attributes and fell between neither like nor dislike and like slightly on the 9-point hedonic scale. These samples were also associated with positive emotions related to energy and activation. Low-salt pastas with no herbs were consistently the least liked samples and evoked negative emotions. Results show that sodium content can be reduced by up to half when herbs are added to microwave-processed pasta meals without compromising liking.

Sensory Perception and Food-Evoked Emotions of Older Adults Assessing Microwave-Processed Meals with Different Salt Concentrations

“…The texture attributes were juicy meat, dry meat, tough meat, moist meat, hard-to-swallow texture, creamy texture, grainy sauce, soft-noodles, firm noodles, slippery noodles, sticky noodles, and other. These attributes were selected based on previous work by Romaniw et al [26].…”

“…In the final section of the questionnaire, the participants answered the EsSense 25, a shortened version of the EsSense Profile ® , which presents 25 emotional terms that are evaluated on a 5-point intensity scale (1 = not at all; 5 = extremely) [30]. The 25 terms were presented in alphabetical order [26,31].…”

“…However, the few studies on the application of tools to measure food-evoked emotion have resulted in a limited understanding of the impact of age on those emotions [25]. Romaniw et al [26] showed that, in older adults tested in a lab setting, positive evoked emotions were associated with higher liking scores, while negative evoked emotions were more related to disliking. These results did not differ from those found among younger adults.…”

The texture factor: food product development for discrete populations including orally compromised elderly consumers and children with Down syndrome

“…In addition, revisiting recipes, particularly in the case of ready‐to‐eat‐meals, offers another approach to tailor food texture (Romaniw et al ., 2022). Moist texture is associated with decreased chewing effort and ease of swallow.…”

Influence of pressurization rate and mode on cell damage of Escherichia coli and Staphyloccocus aureus by high hydrostatic pressure

“…Thermal sterilization is the typical traditional food sterilization process and is widely used (Soni et al, 2020). It can effectively kill bacteria in various foods such as rice (Auksornsri et al, 2018), eggs (Soni et al, 2020), and meat products (Romaniw et al, 2022). However, high temperature introduced by thermal sterilization may affect the characteristics of food, such as flavor, color, or nutritional value (Wang et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2022).…”