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Behaviour, Appetite and Obesity
The role of taste in dietary intake is of particular interest from a nutritional perspective. That is, taste plays a key role in food choice and dietary patterns(1). Besides guiding food choice, taste may serve as an early signal of its nutrient content(2,3), thereby affecting satiation(4)and subsequent food intake(5-7). Studying dietary patterns from a taste perspective - and not only a nutritional perspective - provides us with a deeper understanding of the role of taste in dietary intake.
Research on the role of taste in dietary intake is still in its infancy. To study the role of taste in dietary intake, it is essential to objectively quantify the taste intensity values across foods consumed within a population. Food composition tables are globally available; however, only three studies compiled a taste database(2,3,8). Van Dongen et al.(2)quantified the basic taste intensity values of fifty frequently consumed single Dutch foods and subsequently studied taste-nutrient relationships. More recently, Martin et al.(8)described the taste profile of 590 French foods within the diet of their twelve trained panellists. Yet, these studies assessed taste values only for selected foods that were not representative of the diet of the general population. We are aware of only one study(3)that determined taste values of foods within the entire diet of a national sample of the population. However, this Australian study focused on taste-nutrient relationships in foods and did not assess the role of taste in dietary intake.
The role of taste in dietary intake may differ among sex and weight status subgroups of the population. Although no literature is available on dietary taste patterns, this is available for studies on taste preferences. For example, several studies have found that men liked salty and/or fatty foods more than women(9-15), whereas women liked sweet foods more than men(9,10,14,15). However, it is less clear whether taste preferences differ by weight status. Some studies have...