Using projective techniques and Food Neophobia Scale to explore the perception of traditional ethnic foods in Central Mexico: A preliminary study on the beverage Sende

Abstract

Foods considered ethnic are produced and consumed in a specific region. As well it has been documented that consumers expresses fear of the intention of eating new foods. Furthermore, the perception of the Mexican consumers toward ethnic foods has been scarcely studied. The aim of this work was to explore the perception toward Sende-a traditional ethnic Mazahua beverage of low alcoholic content, produced from germinated corn, dried, cooked and fermented-using word association (WA) and Food Neophobia Scale (FNS). A questionnaire was designed and applied to 160 people in a locality in Central Mexico where, traditionally, this beverage is produced. The mean of FNS was 26.70, which suggests that food neophobia level in the sample under study was low. Through WA, 13 categories were obtained which reflect the perception toward the beverage. By means of cluster analysis, three groups were obtained, which presented differences in FNS and the categories obtained through WA. These results may serve to promote and foster the consumption of traditional ethnic foods, which are not familiar for the population, this with a view to increasing the number of new producing establishments, improving profitability and developing the local economy. Practical applications There is a wide range of traditional ethnic foods in Mexico. However, many are unknown to the population and are falling in disuse, which could lead to their disappearance. The results of this work might help local producers or institutions from different regions of the country to promote their gastronomic heritage, particularly their traditional ethnic foods. Furthermore, this research shows that young people may be more interested in trying and consuming this type of food products. In that sense, campaigns to promote and disseminate ethnic foods could focus on this consumer sector considering their levels of acceptance or rejection when consuming little known or non diet food products. 1 | INTRODUCTION Food is a fundamental part of any society's culture. The relation between edible natural resources and technological development has evolved and influenced what we eat, the way our foods are obtained and the methods to prepare them (Meléndez & Cañez, 2010). Each country or region configures food characteristics on the basis of cultural components associated with the individuals' consumption patterns which, gradually, become their traditional cuisine. Traditional foods are part of a cultural model, as they comprise ancestral culinary

Adaptation and Validation of the Food Neophobia Scale: The Case of Hungary

“…We managed to identify four clusters with the factors that emerged in the course of the analysis. Unlike our research, most other surveys-such as Bernal-Gil et al [52] and Paupério et al [28]-identified three clusters, but there were two-cluster solutions as well (e.g., [53]). Given that the different surveys used a different number of items in the FNS to serve as the basis of their analysis, and various numbers of factors with different compositions were created with different factor loadings, the possibilities of international comparisons of cluster analyses carried out with these factors is, therefore, severely limited.…”

Towards Sustainable Diets: Understanding the Cognitive Mechanism of Consumer Acceptance of Biofortified Foods and the Role of Nutrition Information

“…While the FNS has been proven successful in measuring consumer receptivity to novel foods [24,25], it is not clear if it can be used to measure different dimensions of food neophobia related to biofortified foods. Biofortified foods, particularly those involving visible nutrition traits, have two significant attributes that may affect the food decision process, i.e., modified nutrition and color change.…”

Neofobia alimentaria entre estudiantes universitarios: un estudio de la percepción social de la alimentación en tiempos de COVID-19

“…Posteriormente, se calcularon los puntajes de la sumatoria de los 10 ítems de la escala por cada sujeto o participante, esto se realizó con la finalidad de obtener el valor de neofobia alimentaria por cada participante, el cual podía oscilar entre 10 y 50 (Pliner y Hobden, 1992;Soucier, Doma, Farrel, Leith-Bailey y Duncan, 2019). Además, se calcularon las medidas de tendencia central y dispersión (media y desviación estándar) por cada una de las variables de la ENA La estructura de la ENAfue evaluada a partir del método de Análisis de Componentes Principales (Fernández-Ruíz et al, 2013;Bernal-Gil et al, 2020). El Análisis de Componentes Principales es una herramienta de la estadística multivariada que transforma un conjunto de variables que pueden estar relacionadas, en una serie de variables que están linealmente correlacionados o también conocidos como componentes principales (Zakaira, 2014).…”

“…Es de destacar que el valor de la ENA fue de 26.00±6.49, lo que sugiere que los niveles de neofobia alimentaria, entre la población de estudio, es baja. Los resultados guardan consistencia con otras investigaciones que han empleado la ENA en diferentes contextos en México (Salgado et al, 2016;Bernal-Gil et al, 2020) Otro aspecto a destacar es que el estudio fue llevado a cabo en tiempos de la pandemia de COVID-19, lo que sugeriría que al menos en este sector de la población, la epidemia causada por el virus SARS-CoV-2 no ha afectado significativamente en los niveles de miedo o rechazo de alimentos nuevos extraños entre algunos sectores de la población joven del país. Guzek et al (2021) reportaron también que algunos consumidores jóvenes presentaron bajos niveles de neofobia alimentaria en tiempos de COVID-19.…”

“…Hermosillo y Ciudad Obregón todas ellas pertenecientes al estado de Sonora, se encontróun bajo nivel de fobia a probar alimentos nuevos, aunque el estudio reconoce que hay variaciones entre las propias comunidades con respecto al medio, la proximidad con otra cultura y al proceso de urbanización (Salgado et al, 2016). Bernal-Gil et al (2020) extienden la aplicación de la ENA hacia un grupo poblacional del centro del país, específicamente sobre el estudio de una bebida perteneciente a un pueblo originario, identificando también niveles bajos de neofobia alimentaria entre la población de estudio. Sin embargo, es importante explorar en otros sectores de la población el uso de esta herramienta metodológica para conseguir mayor información sobre algunos de los determinantes en la selección de alimentos de la población.…”