Abstract

MARQUES, Carolina; FARIA, Ana; LOUREIRO, Helena  and  POCINHO, Margarida. Impact of blind taste on fruits and vegetables acceptance in school children. Acta Port Nutr [online]. 2019, n.19, pp.12-18. ISSN 2183-5985.  https://doi.org/10.21011/apn.2019.1903.

Introduction: Nowadays, we observe a low fruit and vegetables consumption for children who commonly reject to even taste it. Sensorial activities emerge as alternatives to promote the consumption and stimulate the contact of its’ many dimensions - looks, odor, taste and textures. Objetives: To evaluate if the blind tasting of food influenced the children’ acceptance of fruit and vegetables. Methodology: The sample included 47 children between 9 and 11 years old from a basic school in the central region of Portugal. Parents’ opinion about his children’s food preferences was collected in a questionnaire. Children’s preferences were measured by a scale after visual exposure of 20 different foods and after blind taste of 3 fruits and 3 vegetables. The scores of the two scales were compared, as well as the relation between parents’ opinion and children’s ratings in each scale. Results: The blind taste led to changes in scores given to the tested foods, mostly positive changes. There has been more positive than negative changes in the ratings of 4 tested foods, with a stronger difference in pear and orange (p< 0.05). There were changes from “non preferential” to “preferential” ratings in all foods tested, specially in carrot, pear and orange. Comparing parents’ and children’s scores, we noticed that scores after visual exposure are similar to parents’ opinion. On the contrary, after blind taste there were interesting changes. The majority of children gave different scores than their parents in 4 tested foods - kids’ scores where mostly higher. Conclusions: Blind taste seemed to affect positively children’s opinion about fruits and vegetables, but more interventions are needed to verify this in bigger groups and with more foods.

Keywords : Fruits; Vegetables; Blind taste; Sensorial.

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