Berčík Jakub, Vietoris Vladimír, Korčok Melina, Rusková Adriana, Durec Ján, Neomániová Katarína
Institute of Marketing, Trade and Social Studies, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture, 949 76, Nitra, Slovakia.
Institute of Food Sciences, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences, Slovak University of Agriculture, 949 76, Nitra, Slovakia.
Heliyon. 2025 Jan 2;11(1):e41649. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e41649. eCollection 2025 Jan 15.
The rapidly increasing number of elderly people in the world highlights the need for the development of innovative foods with modified textures that do not expose the elderly to the risks associated with food consumption (risk of aspiration, suffocation, and chocking). Providing specific food such as edible gel for the elderly population and the study of their properties is a challenge for the scientific community. There are some available gels in the supermarkets destined for the sports population, with specific texture and technological properties that could be used and extrapolated for senior people. To explore this potential, five types of sport commercial gels purchased from a local Slovak market were characterized in order to evaluate their technological properties and to know if these types of gels are suitable for the senior population. The energy gels were evaluated using acceptance testing, involving 75 seniors who evaluated important organoleptic attributes by a combination of hedonic and intensity scales. The same consumer panel then profiled the gels using the Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) technique. The prevalence of food neophobia was measured with the Food Neophobia Scale (FNS) and also using neuroimaging and biometric methods. The results suggest that there are significant differences in the perception of edible gels, as confirmed by measurements via electroencephalography (EEG) and Facereading. We conclude by suggesting the potential of specific foods such as edible gels for the elderly population as our findings also confirm that the composition of these specific and sustainable foods may elicit different perceptions. This highlights the need to use biometric and neuroimaging methods in food research in order to create more optimal formulations for specific populations.
世界上老年人数量的迅速增加凸显了开发质地改良的创新食品的必要性，这类食品不会使老年人面临与食物消费相关的风险（误吸、窒息和噎食风险）。为老年人群提供特定食品，如可食用凝胶，并研究其特性，是科学界面临的一项挑战。超市里有一些面向运动人群的现成凝胶，其具有特定质地和技术特性，可用于老年人并进行推广。为了探索这种潜力，对从斯洛伐克当地市场购买的五种运动商业凝胶进行了特性分析，以评估其技术特性，并了解这些类型的凝胶是否适合老年人群。使用接受度测试对能量凝胶进行评估，75名老年人通过享乐量表和强度量表相结合的方式对重要感官属性进行评估。然后，同一消费者小组使用感觉的时间主导性（TDS）技术对凝胶进行了剖析。使用食物新恐惧症量表（FNS）以及神经成像和生物识别方法测量食物新恐惧症的患病率。结果表明，通过脑电图（EEG）测量和面部表情分析证实，对可食用凝胶的感知存在显著差异。我们的研究结果还证实，这些特定且可持续的食品的成分可能会引发不同的感知，因此我们建议可食用凝胶等特定食品对老年人群具有潜力。这凸显了在食品研究中使用生物识别和神经成像方法以为特定人群创造更优化配方的必要性。
