Department of Food Science, University of Arkansas, 2650 North Young Avenue, Fayetteville, AR 72704, USA.
Department of Pediatrics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, 72202, USA; Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center, 15 Children's Way, 512-20B, Little Rock, AR 72202, USA.
Food Res Int. 2020 May;131:108981. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2020.108981. Epub 2020 Jan 7.
To encourage children to frequently consume wild blueberries as part of their dietary patterns, incorporating blueberry powder into specific foods may be an effective strategy. Thus, it is important to determine appropriate types of food products that both minimize food processing-induced loss of beneficial components of blueberries (e.g., anthocyanins) and satisfy at the same time both nutritional and sensory aspects. For clinical studies assessing the health benefits of blueberry-containing food samples, it would be important to ensure children consume the entire portion of the test samples. This study, therefore, aimed at determining how sensory acceptability (liking) and psychological reward (wanting) of wild blueberry-based foods vary over multiple steps of ad libitum consumption: appearance, first bite/sip, half bite/sip, and full consumption. Five different types of foods containing the targeted amount of wild blueberry powder were prepared for sensory testing (oatmeal bar, beverage, ice pop, gummy, and cookie), and the residual amounts of total anthocyanin and chlorogenic acid were measured to confirm levels targeted to deliver bioactive amounts of these phytochemicals. Results showed that while overall liking and desire to eat did not differ among the five samples at the appearance and first bite/sip steps, they differed significantly at the end of consumption. Although children liked and wanted to consume the cookies more when compared to beverages, ice pops, and/or gummies, total anthocyanin contents were lower in cookies and gummies than in wild blueberry powder, beverage, and ice pop samples. Notably, the oatmeal bars with significant amounts of total anthocyanin and chlorogenic acid did not significantly differ from the cookies with respect to overall liking, desire to eat, and the amount consumed. In conclusion, this study shows that sensory evaluation using multiple bites/sips of ad libitum food consumption, along with a measurement of beneficial compounds, is efficient in determining appropriate vehicles for clinical studies of wild blueberry-containing foods.
为鼓励儿童经常食用野生蓝莓作为其饮食模式的一部分，将蓝莓粉融入特定食物中可能是一种有效的策略。因此，重要的是要确定适当的食品类型，既能最大限度地减少蓝莓有益成分（如花青素）在食品加工过程中的损失，同时又能满足营养和感官方面的需求。对于评估蓝莓食品样本健康益处的临床研究，确保儿童食用整个测试样本是很重要的。因此，本研究旨在确定野生蓝莓食品在自由进食的多个阶段的感官可接受性（喜欢）和心理奖励（想要）如何变化：外观、第一口/第一口、半口/口、和完全消耗。为了进行感官测试，准备了五种不同类型的含有目标量野生蓝莓粉的食物（燕麦棒、饮料、冰棒、软糖和饼干），并测量了总花青素和绿原酸的残留量，以确认目标水平可提供这些植物化学物质的生物活性量。结果表明，虽然在外观和第一口/第一口阶段，五种样品的总体喜欢度和想吃程度没有差异，但在消耗结束时差异显著。尽管与饮料、冰棒和/或软糖相比，儿童更喜欢并想吃饼干，但饼干和软糖中的总花青素含量低于野生蓝莓粉、饮料和冰棒样品。值得注意的是，含有大量总花青素和绿原酸的燕麦棒在总体喜欢度、想吃程度和消耗量方面与饼干没有显著差异。总之，这项研究表明，使用多次自由进食的食物摄入的感官评估，结合有益化合物的测量，对于确定含有野生蓝莓的食物的临床研究的合适载体是有效的。
