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NutrInsight • Satiety: from appetite sciences to food application
Selection of “satiety experts”
In the present work, 18 sensory panellists, already trained for the quantitative descriptive rating of food qualities were screened in order to select 15 “satiety experts”. While sex was not a selection criterion, the potential participants’ Disinhibition and Restraint scores, on the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire [Stunkard & Messick, 1985], were obtained. In addition various questionnaires were used in order to determine the participants’ eating habits and leisure activities. In this particular study, it was important to assess habitual consumption at breakfast, to exclude the presence of aversion or allergy to the test foods, and to optimize the activities of participants when taking part in a 3-h experimental test under laboratory conditions. After selection, 4 men and 11 women were included in the “satiety expert” group to undergo specific training.
Training satiety experts
The first step of training had to do with creating a “satiety dictionary” of definitions and references, based on the sensory analysis method. An open discussion with the participants allowed the identification of the vocabulary of satiety. Factors involved in appetite were discussed. For example questions such as “Why do I eat?” or “How do I recognise that I am hungry?” were used to stimulate discussion. The meaning of the four dimensions usually rated in appetite studies (hunger, fullness, desire to eat, and prospective consumption) was addressed. The use of the VAS was explained. In particular the levels of sensations associated with successive segments of the VAS line were agreed upon and shared between panellists and experimenters.
The second step of satiety training consisted in 10 test sessions during which the satiety effects of various breakfasts were assessed. Following an overnight fast, the panellists were invited to consume a 250 kcal portion of a test food. A first series of VAS ratings (hunger, fullness, desire to eat, prospective consumption) was obtained immediately before breakfast, then another one 20 minutes following breakfast, and then at 30 minutes intervals until 170 minutes post-breakfast. Various CHO-rich foods, with presumed different satiating power, were used for the training breakfasts. Four breakfast foods or combinations of foods represented a large range of satiating power, from weak to high: pastries, apple purée, brown bread + butter, banana + milk + cereals. Three types of dry biscuits of different textures (plain, light texture, and standard dry biscuits) were used. Among these three, the standard dry biscuit was presented 4 times in order to test the reproducibility of ratings obtained under repeated conditions. The satiety power of the breakfast products was quantified by computing the average score between the four VAS appetite dimensions. All the products were eaten with the same hot beverage (tea or coffee) in all sessions by each panellist.
The training of experts appeared successful, as evidenced by two criteria. First the level of reproducibility was high (Figure 1). The consumption of a 250 kcal portion of the standard dry biscuit led to highly reproducible appetite ratings for the 170 minutes that followed ingestion, when comparing the four repeated tests.
Figure 1: Reproducibility of appetite ratings following four repeated ingestion of the same food (biscuit).
Source: Lesdéma et al., submitted
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