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Positive emotions are critical for the success of food products in the marketplace. Yet, little is known about the emotional response to plant-based meat alternatives. This study investigated food-evoked emotions of plant-based burgers and meat burgers, and their associations with liking and choice for either of the burgers. In an online survey, 279 Dutch adults (meat eaters and flexitarians) were shown pictures of a plant-based burger and a meat burger in random order. They were asked to imagine eating the burgers, and then to rate the expected experience of 13 food-evoked emotions and liking for each burger on a 7-point Likert scale. Participants also had to indicate which of the two burgers they would choose to eat. Results showed that participants expected to feel more ‘proud’ and ‘cool’ and less ‘guilty’ and ‘worried’ when eating a plant-based burger compared to a meat burger (p < 0.05). In contrast, they expected to feel more ‘happy’ and less ‘bored’ when eating a meat burger (p < 0.05). Anticipated emotions ‘satisfied’ (B = 0.30), ‘anxious’ (B = 0.22) and ‘worried’ (B = −0.30) were significantly related to the expected liking of the plant-based burger; choosing a plant-based burger was mainly influenced by being flexitarian (B = 0.28) (all p < 0.05). This study provided valuable new insights in the anticipated emotional response to plant-based and meat burgers and identified potential emotional targets to encourage people to switch meat for plant-based alternatives. Future research should investigate whether (interventions to reinforce) anticipated food-evoked emotions impact actual food choice behaviour and liking of plant-based meat alternatives.

Plant-based meat substitutes replacing animal meat can potentially support the transition towards more sustainable diets. To enable the required transition, consumer acceptance of plant-based meat is essential. An important aspect of this is the feeling of satiety or being full after eating. This study determined the satiating capacity of both plant-based meat and animal meat in 60 adults under real-life in-home conditions. Participants consumed four fixed ready-to eat meals for lunch at home once per week. Two types of Indian curry with ‘chicken’ were investigated as well as two types of pasta Bolognese with ‘minced meat’. The two ‘chicken’ dishes and the two ‘minced meat’ dishes had the same recipe except for a gram-for-gram swap (125 g each) of either animal meat (chicken breast and minced meat) or plant-based (soy) meat. Results showed no difference in the satiating power of an animal meat dish and a plant-based meat dish when these were eaten as part of a full lunch meal at home. In addition, the meals did not result in energy nor macronutrient compensation during the rest of the day after consuming the meals. This occurred despite the caloric differences of the meals as a result of the real-life conditions (i.e., a lower energy content of the pasta with plant-based meat compared to the other meals). We conclude that meals with plant-based meat can be as satiating as meals with animal meat.

While dietary intake has previously been related to various indices of poor sleep (e.g., short sleep duration, poor sleep quality), to date, few studies have examined chrononutrition from the perspectives of the relationship between dietary intake and social jet lag and temporal sleep variability. Moreover, recently it has been suggested that previous methods of measuring social jet lag have the potential to lead to large overestimations. Together, this precludes a clear understanding of the role of nutritional composition in the pathophysiology of poor sleep, via social jet lag and temporal sleep variability, or vice versa. The aim of the present study was to determine the relationships between nutrient intake and social jet lag (using a revised index, taking account of intention to sleep and sleep onset and offset difficulties), and temporal sleep variability. Using a cross-sectional survey, 657 healthy participants (mean age 26.7 ± 6.1 years), without sleep disorders, were recruited via an online platform and completed measures of weekly dietary intake, social jet lag, temporal sleep variability, stress/sleep reactivity and mood. Results showed limited associations between nutritional composition and social jet lag. However, levels of temporal sleep variability were predicted by consumption of polyunsaturated fats, sodium, chloride and total energy intake. The results suggest further examinations of specific nutrients are warranted in a first step to tailoring interventions to manage diet and temporal variabilities in sleep patterns.

Portion size manipulation is well known to be effective in increasing vegetable intake in adults, whereas less is known about the effects of portion size manipulation on reducing meat intake. This online study investigated the effects of recommended and regularly consumed portion sizes of vegetables and meat in five familiar Dutch meals. Participants evaluated 60 food pictures of five meals and used a 100 mm VAS to measure expected liking, satiety, food-evoked emotions, and the perceived normal portion size. The results show that both regular and recommended portions scored above 55 on the 100 mm VAS on expected liking and satiety. Similarly, both portion sizes scored high (55–70 on the 100 mm VAS) in positive emotions (i.e., happy, relaxed, and satisfied). Regarding the perceived amount of meat, men consistently preferred larger portions of meat than women. However, the optimal portion sizes of vegetables were similar for men and women. Furthermore, the recommended portion sizes led to positive food-evoked emotions, implying that the effective implementation of portion size strategies for increasing vegetable and limiting meat intake requires a careful, holistic approach focusing on the sensory characteristics of food products as well as the emotions evoked by the total food experience.

We examined the effects of an informative pitch and multisensory contexts as potential factors influencing individuals’ experience of tofu with soy sauce and the amount consumed outside the lab. Two hundred and sixteen participants watched one of two pitches (promoting either vegetarian diets or exercise) and were guided into one of three multisensory contexts (‘sustainable’, ‘meat’, or ‘neutral’ theme). Participants rated the aroma and appearance of soy sauce and the taste of tofu dipped in it using the intuitive ‘one touch’ EmojiGrid valence and arousal measuring tool. Our results showed that the ‘meat’ context increased arousal ratings for soy sauce and the tendency to consume more tofu relative to the other contexts. Pitch did not influence affective ratings or amounts consumed. We conclude that the multisensory context has the potential to positively affect peoples’ choices and perceptions of plant-based and sustainable food and promote its consumption.

Introduction: Understanding how food neophobia affects food experience may help to shift toward sustainable diets. Previous research suggests that individuals with higher food neophobia are more aroused and attentive when observing food-related stimuli. The present study examined whether electrodermal activity (EDA), as index of arousal, relates to food neophobia outside the lab when exposed to a single piece of food.Methods: The EDA of 153 participants was analyzed as part of a larger experiment conducted at a festival. Participants completed the 10-item Food Neophobia Scale. Subsequently, they saw three lids covering three foods: a hotdog labeled as “meat”, a hotdog labeled as “100% plant-based”, and tofu labeled as “100% plant-based”. Participants lifted the lids consecutively and the area-under-the-curve (AUC) of the skin conductance response (SCR) was captured between 20 s before and 20 s after each food reveal.Results: We found a significant positive correlation between food neophobia and AUC of SCR during presentation of the first and second hotdog and a trend for tofu. These correlations remained significant even when only including the SCR data prior to the food reveal (i.e., an anticipatory response).Discussion: The association between food neophobia and EDA indicates that food neophobic individuals are more aroused upon the presentation of food. We show for the first time that the anticipation of being presented with food already increased arousal for food neophobic individuals. These findings also indicate that EDA can be meaningfully determined using wearables outside the lab, in a relatively uncontrolled setting for single-trial analysis.

The average intake of fruits across the world is lower than recommended. This lower intake of fruit is surprising as fruit is a typically liked food, and a higher liking is generally associated with a higher intake. The question then arises as to why do levels of fruit intake remain lower than recommended. This study investigated dynamic changes in hedonic and emotional responses to a fresh fruit salad consisting of pineapple, strawberries and blueberries. In a within-subjects design, 45 participants (aged 26.7 ± 4.6 years) randomly consumed three portion sizes of food (i.e. small, regular and large) across three sessions. The foods were divided into a first and last section of consumption. Before and after consumption, hunger and liking were measured. Throughout consumption, emotional responses were measured with Temporal Dominance of Emotions (TDE). Results showed that liking increased from before consumption till after consumption for all portions. The emotional profiles (TDE) of small, regular, and the first section of the large portion were dominated by happy and relaxed. However, the emotional profile for the last section of the large portion size, also showed negative emotions to become dominant, i.e. bored. These results show that large portions of fresh fruit salad may be less enjoyed by consumers as compared to eating a small or regular portion. This implies that consuming smaller portions of fruit on several occasions across the day, may serve the goal of meeting the recommended daily fruit intake better than eating a large portion of fruit in a single occasion. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how consumers perceive and respond to changes in portion size, and allow to address the effectiveness of portion size strategies for consumer health and wellbeing.

Introduction: Substantial response heterogeneity is commonly seen in dietary intervention trials. In larger datasets, this variability can be exploited to identify predictors, for example genetic and/or phenotypic baseline characteristics, associated with response in an outcome of interest. Objective: Using data from a placebo-controlled crossover study (the FINGEN study), supplementing with two doses of long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC n-3 PUFAs), the primary goal of this analysis was to develop models to predict change in concentrations of plasma triglycerides (TG), and in the plasma phosphatidylcholine (PC) LC n-3 PUFAs eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) + docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), after fish oil (FO) supplementation. A secondary goal was to establish if clustering of data prior to FO supplementation would lead to identification of groups of participants who responded differentially. Methods: To generate models for the outcomes of interest, variable selection methods (forward and backward stepwise selection, LASSO and the Boruta algorithm) were applied to identify suitable predictors. The final model was chosen based on the lowest validation set root mean squared error (RMSE) after applying each method across multiple imputed datasets. Unsupervised clustering of data prior to FO supplementation was implemented using k-medoids and hierarchical clustering, with cluster membership compared with changes in plasma TG and plasma PC EPA + DHA. Results: Models for predicting response showed a greater TG-lowering after 1.8 g/day EPA + DHA with lower pre-intervention levels of plasma insulin, LDL cholesterol, C20:3n-6 and saturated fat consumption, but higher pre-intervention levels of plasma TG, and serum IL-10 and VCAM-1. Models also showed greater increases in plasma PC EPA + DHA with age and female sex. There were no statistically significant differences in PC EPA + DHA and TG responses between baseline clusters. Conclusion: Our models established new predicto

One way to promote healthier eating behaviors is to reduce food portion sizes and thereby decrease the average daily energy consumed. Positive emotion is a crucial factor in consumers affective responses to food and add to liking ratings in predicting food preferences and choices. Despite this, we know little about the emotional experiences in response to variations in portion size. This study investigated dynamic changes in hedonic and emotional responses to high energy-dense foods varying in portion size. In a within-subjects design, 58 participants (aged 24.1 ± 2.9 years) randomly consumed three different food portions (i.e., small, regular and large) of two food products (i.e., ice cream and pizza) across six experimental sessions. Explicit measures included liking scores and scores on hunger, arousal, overall satisfaction and Temporal Dominance of Emotions (TDE). Implicit measures included facial (emotional) expressions using FaceReaderTM. Results showed that the small and regular portions scored higher on liking than the large portions, for both the ice cream and pizza. In addition, the small portions had similar emotional (TDE) profiles as the regular portions (happy, relaxed and peace), whereas the large portions evoked more negative emotional (TDE) profiles compared to the small and regular portions (bored, guilty, disgusted). The implicit measure facial expressions resulted in a less clear picture, except for the dimensions valence and arousal for ice cream. Participants showed more negative facial expressions and were more aroused during consumption of the regular and large (too much) portion as compared to the small portion during consumption of ice cream. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of emotions in the consumption experience of food products varying in portion size and will help to identify the ideal size of a food product for inducing a positive emotional response.

Social norms refer to what most people do or approve of. Perceived social norms can influence food choice and intake behaviour. However, whether social norms can increase liking and taste perception of food products has not been studied so far. Across two studies, we investigated the impact of on-pack social norm messages (no norm, descriptive or injunctive) and focus (taste or health) on choice and liking of salt-reduced products. In Study I, we investigated the effects of on-pack social norm messages on choice of salt-reduced products in an online shelf purchase test (n = 491). In Study II, we investigated the effects of on-pack social norm messages on liking and salt taste perception of salt-reduced products after tasting (n = 194). Results of Study I showed that focus rather than social norms impacted product choice: participants chose soups with a health focused message significantly more than soups with a taste focused message, regardless of social norm condition. Results of Study II showed that, just before tasting, participants expected the soups with the descriptive norm messages to be saltier but not better liked than the other soups. When actually tasting the soups, the descriptive norm messages did not influence salt taste perception nor liking, i.e. all soups were similarly perceived in saltiness and liking. No effects were found of injunctive norms on expectations, perceptions and liking. Implications with regard to theory and practice are discussed.