Learning to smell: Repeated exposure increases sensitivity to androstenone, a major component of boar taint

Consumers' sensitivity to androstenone and the evaluation of different cooking methods to mask boar taint

“…Furthermore, when consumers were classified according to gender, previous studies found that women were significantly more sensitive than men (Lunde et al, 2009;Mörlein et al, 2013;Weiler et al, 2000;Wysocki & Gilbert, 1989), though in the study by Blanch et al (2012) these differences were not found. The present study found no significant differences, although when two groups of sensitivity were done there was a tendency (P=0.054) that women had more sensitivity than men.…”

“…It is important to notice that only Blanch et al (2012) used the same methodology than the present study to classify consumer sensitivity to androstenone (insensitive/low sensitive [score 1-3], middle sensitive [score 4-6] and high sensitive [score 7-8]). Mörlein, Meier-Dinkel, Moritz, Sharifi, and Knorr (2013) and Aluwé et al (2015) used a methodology to evaluate sensitivity to androstenone based on smell strips with a known concentration of androstenone, while the other studies used pure crystals or dissolutions in different medias (Blanch et al, 2012;Font i Furnols et al, 2003;Lunde et al, 2009;Razafindrazaka et al, 2015;Weiler et al, 2000). The presentation of the meat sample is also important.…”

Summaries

“…Therefore, a framework for selection, training and monitoring of sensory assessors is presented; key aspects are highlighted. Standardized procedures for selection of sensory assessors including reference materials are suggested given the variability of human olfactory acuity (Mörlein et al, 2013) which in turn affects the perception of boar taint (Meier-Dinkel et al, 2012;. Both the capability to correctly discriminate androstenone and skatole at relevant concentration levels and the ability to correctly identify these substances need to be assured.…”

The effect of skatole and androstenone on consumer response towards streaky bacon and pork belly roll

“…It has been shown that repeated exposure generally makes people more sensitive towards the odour of AND (Moerlein et al, 2013). It could therefore be expected that repeated exposure to bacon from entire males would decrease liking, even though repeated exposure to a novel food in general has been identified as an effective strategy to promote acceptance (Hartvig, Hausner, Wendin, Ritz, & Bredie, 2015).…”

“…In addition, liking for AND and SKA can also differ among people, since some people actually like the odour of the compounds when presented as pure solutions on paper sticks (Meier-Dinkel et al, 2013a;Moerlein, Meier-Dinkel, Moritz, Sharifi, & Knorr, 2013). The correlation between AND and SKA in the back fat and liking might therefore not only depend on the consumers' olfactory acuity of assessing the compounds but also on their hedonic response towards the compounds that can be related to factors such as the type of product and cooking conditions.…”