Acuità sensoriale e tratti psicologici come modulatori dell'accettabilità di cibi salutari

Food behaviour is affected by many interacting factors in humans, and the acceptability of a food depends on the interaction between its intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics and person- related dimensions that are biological, physiological, psychological, and socio-cultural. The present thesis aimed to select, adapt and validate psychological traits questionnaires used in food science for the Italian population and to explore the role of psychological traits and taste responsiveness (PROP status) in the acceptability of phenol-rich and functionalised foods, also characterised by health benefits and warning sensations, such as bitterness and astringency. This was done by using multidisciplinary and multidimensional approaches and by considering simultaneously taste sensitivity, psychological traits, food attitudes, familiarity with and choice for phenol-rich foods and sensory and hedonic ratings to a real food added with different concentrations of phenol extracts from Olive Mill Waste Water (OMWW). Developing a phenol-enriched food can be a challenging task since consumers are not willing to compromise on sensory quality when it comes to functional foods and for this reason sensory and chemical properties of phenols derived from OMWW in plant-based foods varied in their macro-composition (proteins/neutral pH: bean purée (BP), starch/neutral pH: potato purée (PP), and fibre/low pH: tomato juice (TJ)) were evaluated. Findings suggested that BP contained the most appropriate matrix to counteract the impact of added phenol on negative sensory properties, thus enabling the optimization of the balance between health and sensory properties. Psychological traits significantly affected self-reported food preferences and behaviours, in fact subjects with high food neophobia, sensitivity to punishment, or sensitivity to disgust reported a significantly low preference for phenol-rich foods characterised by warning sensations. Familiarity with vegetables was low in individuals with high sensitivity to punishment, high food neophobia, and high alexithymia, irrespective of their sensory properties. Familiarity with coffee/tea characterised by higher bitterness and astringency was low in individuals with high food neophobia, sensitivity to disgust, and alexithymia. Psychological traits, and taste responsiveness, significantly affected also the perception and the evaluation of real foods. In fact, subjects with high food neophobia, sensitivity to disgust, sensitivity to punishment, alexithymia, state and trait anxiety, and PROP status significantly evaluated the intensity of warning sensations of BP samples added with phenols as more intense. Contrarily, subjects with high sensation seeking and sensitivity to reward perceived the critical sensations as weaker than subjects low in these traits. Few psychological traits affected liking. High sensation-seeking subjects and subjects with high alexithymia preferred the samples more than subjects who had low levels of these traits. 5 Our results confirmed that many factors interact to shape our perception and liking of phenol- rich and functionalised foods, highlighting that the acceptability of healthy foods characterized by warning sensations is inevitably mediated by the meaning attributed to the stimulus. Taken into account these differences help to obtain a more complete picture of the complex relationships that determine the acceptability of a certain food category and enables the identification of the barriers to and the facilitators of healthy eating.