Rajeh Caroline, Hunter Jean B, Levitsky David A, Zeineddine Myra, Kharroubi Samer A, Olabi Ammar
Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences American University of Beirut Beirut Lebanon.
Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Cornell University Ithaca New York USA.
Food Sci Nutr. 2024 Aug 9;12(10):8493-8499. doi: 10.1002/fsn3.4308. eCollection 2024 Oct.
With increasing concerns about health, animal welfare, and the environment, changes in dietary patterns are emerging, as evidenced by the gradual shift toward plant-rich diets. To appropriately plan vegetarian meals with high consumer satisfaction that would help promote this dietary pattern and ultimately improve the sustainability of food systems, meal acceptability testing would be crucial. The present work aims to investigate the influence of individual food components' acceptability on the overall meal acceptability in vegetarian diets. Over four taste-testing periods, 94 panelists of US nationality recruited from Cornell University staff (47 males and 47 females; 30-50 years of age) were asked to rate the acceptability of 41 vegetarian meals containing various food category items, including a main dish, side dish, appetizer, salad, soup, bread, dessert, beverage, and a control food. Each meal included six menu items to ensure the tested foods resembled a typical meal. Consequently, some meals lacked one or more of the nine total food categories. Participants were asked to rate the acceptability of the six meal items and the overall meal acceptability on a 9-point hedonic scale. Multiple imputation was used to fill in any missing data, and multiple linear regression analysis was then performed. Through this study, a model that predicts the overall meal acceptability of vegetarian diets based on individual meal category components was developed with an -squared value of .7033, suggesting that around 70.33% of the variation in overall meal acceptability could be explained by the nine food category predictors. The findings also suggested that the most influential food item on overall meal acceptability was the main dish followed by the side dish. For every unit increase in the acceptability score of the main dish on a 9-point hedonic scale, the overall meal acceptability increased by 0.324 points. The positive findings would be beneficial to food service providers in designing a vegetarian meal with high meal acceptability. By focusing on optimizing the acceptability of these two key categories, menu planners can effectively elevate customers' satisfaction of their meals.
随着人们对健康、动物福利和环境的关注度不断提高，饮食模式正在发生变化，向富含植物的饮食逐渐转变就是明证。为了合理规划出消费者满意度高的素食餐，以帮助推广这种饮食模式并最终提高食品系统的可持续性，餐食可接受性测试至关重要。本研究旨在探讨素食中单个食物成分的可接受性对整体餐食可接受性的影响。在四个味觉测试阶段，从康奈尔大学工作人员中招募了94名美国籍小组成员（47名男性和47名女性；年龄在30至50岁之间），要求他们对41份包含各种食物类别的素食餐的可接受性进行评分，这些食物类别包括主菜、配菜、开胃菜、沙拉、汤、面包、甜点、饮料和一种对照食物。每餐包含六个菜单项，以确保测试的食物类似一顿典型的餐食。因此，有些餐缺少九种食物类别中的一种或多种。参与者被要求根据9分享乐量表对六个餐食项目的可接受性和整体餐食可接受性进行评分。使用多重填补法填补任何缺失数据，然后进行多元线性回归分析。通过这项研究，开发了一个基于单个餐食类别成分预测素食餐整体可接受性的模型，其决定系数值为0.7033，这表明整体餐食可接受性约70.33%的变化可以由九个食物类别预测因子来解释。研究结果还表明，对整体餐食可接受性影响最大的食物项目是主菜，其次是配菜。在9分享乐量表上，主菜可接受性得分每增加一个单位，整体餐食可接受性就增加0.324分。这些积极的研究结果将有助于食品服务提供商设计出餐食可接受性高的素食餐。通过专注于优化这两个关键类别的可接受性，菜单规划者可以有效提高顾客对餐食的满意度。
