Sensory Acceptability of Infant Cereals with Whole Grain in Infants and Young Children

Abstract

In many countries, infant cereals are one of the first foods introduced during the complementary feeding stage. These cereals are usually made with refined cereal flours, even though several health benefits have been linked to the intake of whole grain cereals. Prior evidence suggests that food preferences are developed at early stages of life, and may persist in later childhood and adulthood. Our aim was to test whether an infant cereal with 30% of whole grain was similarly accepted both by parents and infants in comparison to a similar cereal made from refined flour. A total of 81 infants between 4 and 24 months old were included in the study. Parent-infant pairs participated in an 8-day experimental study. Acceptance was rated on hedonic scales (4-points for infants and 7-points for parents). Other attributes like color, smell, and taste were evaluated by the parents. Acceptability for infant cereals with whole grain and refined cereals was very similar both for infants (2.30 ± 0.12 and 2.32 ± 0.11, p = 0.606) and parents (6.1 ± 0.8 and 6.0 ± 0.9, p = 0.494). Therefore, our findings show that there is an opportunity to introduce whole grain cereals to infants, including those who are already used to consuming refined infant cereals, thereby accelerating the exposure of whole grain in early life.

Are Sugar-Reduced and Whole Grain Infant Cereals Sensorially Accepted at Weaning? A Randomized Controlled Cross-Over Trial

“…To our knowledge, this is the first study assessing infant cereals acceptability and gastrointestinal tolerance in infants over time. Previously, Haro-Vicente et al, (2017) [ 29 ] investigated the sensory acceptability of infant cereals with a varying whole grain content (30% vs. 0%) in an eight-day trial indicating that the cereals were equally accepted by both infants and parents [ 29 ]. Despite the higher whole grain percentage difference in our study (50% vs. 0%) and additional varying sugar content (12 g/100 g vs. 24 g/100 g), sensory acceptability still did not differ between the two groups for both cereals.…”

“…Per portion (±20 g) the sugar content in the infant cereals only differ approximately 2.5 g; and (2) infant cereals are usually prepared with human milk or infant formula. We could hypothesize that their sweet taste might mask the taste of the infant cereals [ 29 ]. Breast milk contains about 7 g of lactose/dL [ 40 ] and infant formulas, when diluted, provide a similar level of lactose.…”

“…The infant’s acceptability was assessed via two variables: The “infant’s reaction” towards the infant cereals and the “ingested amount”. The infant’s reaction was measured by means of a 4-point hedonic validated scale [ 29 , 30 , 31 ]. This scale uses the following scores, “0 = very negative” if the infant spits out the food, frowned, pushed the spoon away or stopped eating; “1 = negative” if the infant ate a couple of spoonful, grimaced and stopped eating; “2 = positive” if the infant ate some of the food without a specific reaction; “3 = very positive” if the infant accepted the first spoonful immediately and displayed signs of contentment, such as a relaxed face or a smile.…”

“…Sample size was calculated based on the primary outcome (i.e., parent’s perception of “infant’s reaction”) using a standard deviation of 0.5 and detecting a 0.3 reduction in the response. With a power of 80% and a significance level of p < 0.05 (two-sided test), the minimal required sample size was 22 infants per treatment group [ 29 , 36 ].…”

Understanding children's acceptability after repeated exposure and household‐level behaviors for novel extruded fortified blended foods

“…Chambers et al (2019) showed that novel extruded FBFs from corn or sorghum could be produced with higher solids content and lower viscosity than non-extruded CSB products with little impact on other sensory properties and Delimont et al (2017b) found that similar products led to improved nutrition and growth. Both infants and parents found that acceptability for infant cereals made with whole grain compared to refined cereals was similar, suggesting that there is an opportunity for introducing various cereal types as FBFs (Haro-Vicente, et al, 2017). However, Chanadang, Chambers, Kayanda, Alavi, and Msuya (2018) found that some novel FBFs were more preferred than CSB, but others, such as those made with sorghum, were only equally preferred to CSB when first tasted by children.…”