LINKING FOOD COMPOSITION TO FOOD CHOICE AND NUTRITION: UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER PERCEPTION AND ATTITUDES FROM A COMPOSITIONAL, FUNCTIONAL, AND SENSORY POINT OF VIEW

In light of food abundance the US nevertheless faces a nutritional crisis: despite dietary recommendations and nutritional guidelines many Americans do not consume enough vegetables, fruits, dairy, while exceeding the recommended levels of added sugars, saturated fats, sodium, and total calorie intake (NHANES 2007-2010). Besides providing nutrients, fruits and vegetables are also an important source of plant secondary metabolites. These compounds have a considerable effect on human perception, human health and well-being.While a focus on the functional quality of foods and food ingredients beyond 'adequate nutritional effects' is clearly important, foods and food ingredients must also appeal to consumers with regards to their sensory properties, i.e., flavor, aroma, color, and palatability. As food choice is the result of both external cues and individual preferences, informed by previous experiences and genetic make-up of the human being, it is critical to understand how food composition, function, nutrition, and sensory link to individual perception, acceptance, and intake. For many foods and food ingredients the link between food choice and food function is unclear, and successful strategies to reveal these relationships require study of the complete chain, from the plant to the food and as perceived by the consumer. Additionally, the impact of every step from seed to product in the supply chain on composition, function, nutrition, and sensory properties of foods and food ingredients must be understood. Numerous strategies along the food processing chain to change composition, function, nutrition, and sensory can be employed, however, it is unclear how these changes could be introduced through plant breeding. We are just beginning to understand the complex interactions between plant genes and the environment on secondary metabolites, many of which have physical, nutritional, and sensory food functions. Therefore, breeding has the potential to provide new cultivars that combine improved flavor and nutritional value of vegetables and fruits, through connecting plant breeding, molecular biology, metabolomics and human sensory science in an interdisciplinary manner. Additionally, for many food components the structure-function or activity relationship is unclear, as their impact in a mixture, such as a food, might be above or below the expected impact based on their individual response. These complex interactions of individual components in foods and their combined impact on the function, nutrition, and sensory properties of foods necessitates a holistic evaluation, in real foods and beyond simple model system. Through the combination of both in vitro and in vivo studies the human response to individual and mixtures of food components in real foods will elucidate how these mixture effects impact human perception, food choice and intake. In summary, this causal chain can be depicted as follows: Plants produce metabolites that cause sensory perception which in turn influences Food Choice, and ultimately impacts Nutrition & Health.