Satiating and Conscious Snacks Facilitating healthy eating experiences by manipulating food textures 4510917 Tsai-Wen (Heidi) Mao Design for Interaction Graduation Project, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology
“Cooked rice…can be defined only by a contradiction of substance; it is at once cohesive and detachable; its substantial destination is the fragment, the clump, the volatile conglomerate; it is the only element of weight in all of Japanese alimentation..” -Roland Barthes, 1982
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Project Satiating and Conscious Snacks: Facilitating Healthy eating experiences by manipulating food textures Master Thesis Report Graduation Project of Design for Interaction Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology Supervisory Team Chair
Dr. ir. Schifferstein, H.N.J.
Mentor
Dr. ir. Boeijen, A.G.C. van
Date of Submission 13th of October, 2017 Author Mao, Tsai-Wen (Heidi)
heidimao@gmail.com
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Preface
This report communicates the processes and outcomes of a 28-weeks graduation project for Master of Design for Interaction programme, faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology. The project was conducted by Tsai-Wen (Heidi) Mao under the supervision of Dr. Schifferstein and Dr. van Boeijen. As educated in the master of Design for Interaction, it is believed that the interventions of design can shape our experiences and facilitate positive changes. Food, as the core of the eating experiences, can be considered as a powerful tool to facilitate healthy eating experiences by design. There are more designers noticed the significance of our eating experiences in the past ten years, more and more design projects propose inspiring ideas to reshape our current eating experiences. However, there is not enough attention in the current design fields towards the food per se, as most of the projects focus on designing utensils, packaging and eating environment. The possible reasons are that higher thresholds are expected in terms of knowledge, cooking techniques and facilities for designers to create design interventions by utilizing the food per se.
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This project proposes a new perspective by regarding the food as a powerful tool and materials to reshape people’s eating experiences. Food textures seemed to be a minor factor in our eating experiences, however it plays the most significant role in the phase of oral processing. By manipulating food textures, it is possible to control calories intake and leads eaters to a satiating e ating exp erience. This proje ct unfolds the relationships between food textures and conscious and satiating snacking experiences. In this project, in-depth research on food textures, conscious snacking and satiation were conducted. This report addresses the complete research processes and the outcomes. Moreover, this report brings some benefits for the readers. If you are a designer, you could not only learn more about food textures and possible ways of manipulation, but also be inspired by the methods applied in this project. Even though this project is characterized as a research project, it was conducted in a designer’s perspectives. The applications of design methods, for instance prototyping, can bring new ideas of conducting a research project as a designer. If you are a researcher, this project proposes new findings on the relationships between the perceived food textures and conscious eating. Moreover, the findings can be considered as a starting point for more future research. If you are stakeholders in the food industry, this report can help you make changes in the consumers’ snacking behaviors by facilitating healthy snacking experiences and prevent obesity.
At last, I would like to deliver my gratitude to my supervisory team. It has been a long way, thank you for always being supportive and helpful along the way. I appreciate that you always encourage me to push my boundaries and step out of the comfort zone. Without your supervision, I could never obtain a such insightful and enjoyable experience. Roland Barthes was impressed by the rich textural experiences when he first ate rice in Japan. As a designer without any professional training in food sciences nor culinary practices, as Roland Barthes, I was amazed by the complex and magnificent world expended in front of me when started the research on food textures, and I believe you would feel the same while reading this report.
Contents 0
Preface 7 Contents 10
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Introduction 13
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Experiencing Food Textures
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2.1 Introduction 2.2 What are food textures? 2.3 Experiencing Textures 2.4 Measuring textures 2.5 Conclusion
22 22 23 26 31
Conscious Eating
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1.1 Goal and Expected Result 1.2 Theoretical Background 1.3 Approach & Project Structure 1.4 Target Products: Snacks 1.5 Target Consumers
14 15 16 18 19
3.1 Introduction 3.2 Conscious eating activity 3.3 Conscious Quantity 3.4 Conclusion: Determinants for Conscious Snacking
34 34 52 58
Designer's Toolbox for manipulating food textures
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4.1 Introduction 4.2 Selecting the main food ingredients 4.3 Creating Textures
62 63 65
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Main Study 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Sample Evaluation 5.3 Materials and Methods 5.4 Result 5.5 Discussion 5.6 Test Limitations & Recommendations
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Guidelines for food designers 6.1 Guidelines for food designers 6.2 Recommendations
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73 74 76 84 92 96 98
101 102 106
Reflection 109 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The outcomes of the project 7.3 Research Processes and Methods
110 110 111
References 113 Bibliography 116 Glossary 118 Appendix 121 Appendix A.
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Appendix B.
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Appendix C.
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Appendix D.
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Introduction
1.1 Goal and Expected Result The goal of this project is to tackle obesity. T he i nc r e a s i ng ob e s e p o p u l a t i o n ha s b e e n a severe issue all over the world as well as in The Netherlands. The obese population in The Netherlands has been growing since 1981 (Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu, 2015) and there are 13.7% of the Dutch adult are obese in 2015 (Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu, 2015). Obesity is caused by inequality of energy input and output , in other words, lack of physical activities (Prentice & Jebb, 1995) and excessive energy intake (Bray & Popkin, 1998) both contribute to obesity. This project aims to tackle obesity from the perspective of controlling calories intake. The satiation signal can be considered as a key to control the energy intake of human body (Benelam, 2009). Moreover, eating consciously enables people to be attentive to the satiation signals (Rolls, 2012). The textures of food play the significant roles on both satiation and conscious eating, therefore, fa c i l i t a t i ng c o ns c i o u s a nd s a t i a t i ng e a t i ng experiences by manipulating food textures is an effective way to tackle obesity.
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Snacks are chosen to be the target products in this project, owing to the fact that snacking contributes to extra energy intake (de Graaf, 2006) and can cause obesity (Forslund, Torgerson, Sjรถstrรถm & Lindroos, 2005). In addition, in comparison with consuming main meals, people tend to be less conscious while snacking, for instance, a lot of people like to watch television while snacking (Bellisle, 2014). The study of snacks can be a starting point for the textures studies regarding main meals or other types of food products in the future. The expected outcome of this project is a set of guidelines for designers in the food industry. The designers can create a conscious and satiating snacking experience by referring to the guidelines that unveils not only the correlation between conscious and satiating snacking experiences a n d t h e p e r c e i v e d fo o d t ex t u r e s , b u t a l s o demonstrations of possible ways to manipulate food textures.
1.2 Theoretical Background Two insights from literature were considered as theoretical background in this project: 1 . B o t h o f o u r p h y s i o l o g i ca l a n d co g n i t i v e mechanisms play parts in termination of eating. 2. Food textures are related with both satiation and conscious eating.
Firstly, while consuming food, our physiological and cognitive mechanisms interplay together (Berthoud, 2007). Satiation is the physiological signal to terminate eating (Benelam, 2009), however the sensorial rewards provided by food in our cognitive mechanisms often override this signal (Berthoud, 2007), hence lead people to consume extra energy. Being conscious to food while eating enables people to notice the satiation signal and have more control of their energy intake. Figure 1 depicts the relations between consciousness and satiation.
Secondly, textures of food play significant roles in both satiation and conscious eating. In terms of satiation, when the food is exposed longer in the mouth, people tend to feel satiating easily (Larsen et al, 2016; Hogenkamp & Schiรถth 2013; de Graaf, 2012), and textures have direct influences on oral exposure time. For conscious eating, food textures are sensorial rewards in our cognition (Rolls, 2012), people can gain more control of their calories intake by experiencing textures more consciously (Biswas, Szocs, Krishna & Lehmann, 2014). The aforementioned two insights indicate that it is possible to tackle obesity by creating textures that can bring eaters a satiating and conscious experience. Hence this project aims to unveil the texture characteristics that are related with satiating and conscious eating experiences.
Figure 1. The relation between consciousness and satiation
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1.3 Approach & Project Structure
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As mentioned in the previous section, two facets are involved in the guidelines; the correlations b e t w e e n c o ns c i o u s a nd s a t i a t i ng s na c k i ng experiences and perceived food textures, and the demonstrations of textures manipulations.
A n ex p l o r a t i o n o n t h e s e l e c t e d m a i n fo o d ingredients by prototyping was conducted (Chapter 4). The selected prototypes were used as the food samples in the main study, and can be regarded as demonstrations of textures manipulations.
To discover how the conscious and satiating snacking experiences are correlated with the perceived food textures, two research topics were first formulated; the research regarding conscious and satiating snacking experiences, and the research about food textures. The conscious and satiating snacking experiences were investigated with qualitative methods, in-depth interviews were conducted with target consumers to find out the determinants for conscious and satiating snacking (Chapter 3). For the research on food textures, a literature research (Chapter 2) was first conducted on the oral processes as well as the existing methods for textures measurements. The perceived texture characteristics that are in relation with eating experiences and satiation were defined. The correlations between the determinants and the perceived texture characteristics were investigated in the main study (Chapter 5).
A set of guidelines were created (Chapter 6) combining the result of the main study and textures explorations. The guidelines were created as an interactive webpage to be utilized easily. Figure 2 illustrates all the phases and structure of this project.
Figure 2. The structures and methods applied in this project
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1.4 Target Products: Snacks 1.4.1 What are snacks?
1.4.2 Why snacks?
Snacks are chosen to be the target products in this project. However, there is no agreement on the definition of snacks among all studies (Bellisle, 2014). The most common definition is to define snacks based on eating occasion (Hess, Jonnalagadda & Slavin, 2016), the snacks are defined as “food eaten between regular meals” (Merriam Webster Online, n.d). In other studies, the definition of snacks vary based on their approaches (Bellisle, 2014). In this project, the definition of snacks follows the perspective of eating occasions, owing to the fact that the guidelines target designers in the food industry. Thus the most common definition is applied:
There are three reasons of selecting snacks as the target products; the high calories contents, the higher textures tolerance to snacks, and the relation between snacking and obesity.
A snack is defined as food that is eaten besides main meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner). A classification of snacks was also made by applying the classification from a snacks market report of The Nelson Company (2014), see Appendix A.1.
Firstly, the most popular snacks contain higher calories, and snacking contribute to 30% of Dutch people’s daily calories intake (Geurts, van Bakel, van Rossum, de Boer & Ocke, 2017). A list (Appendix A.2) of the snacks products were made by researching the online shops of the two biggest retailers in The Netherlands (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, 2016); Albert Heijn and Jumbo. The three most consumed snack categories (Geurts et al., 2017); namely chips/ crisps, nuts and chocolate generally contain higher calories than others, which supports the relevance of facilitating a conscious and satiating snacking experiences. A comparison of calories contents based on categories can be viewed in Appendix A.3. Secondly, wide ranges of textures varieties can be observed on the existing products, this echoes the fact that people have higher textures tolerance to snacks products (Szczesniak, 2002). Therefore, snacks can be considered a suitable target product to manipulate textures. At last , there are many studies discuss the relationship between obesity and snacking (Hess et al., 2016; Bellisle, 2014; de Graaf, 2006). Overall, snacking unconsciously are proven to be related with obesity (Bellisle, 2014). Snacks as defined is the foods eaten besides main meals, snacking can be considered as ‘unexpected’ eating episodes
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(Bellisle, 2014) comparing with the ‘fixed’ eating episodes as the main meals. Our homeostatic system (Berthoud, 2007) is responsible to adjust our energy intake for the fixed eating episodes in a day. Thus being conscious is especially important when snacking than consuming main meals. Owing to the fact that our energy balance system cannot adjust to the ‘unexpected’ calories intake accordingly, it is important to be conscious to the satiation signals while snacking to prevent obesity.
1.5 Target Consumers P e o p l e ’s p e r c e p t i o n s t o fo o d t ex t u r e s a r e influenced by various factors. This project aims to define a group of target consumers that have higher homogeneity on their perceptions to food textures. Owing to the fact that this project can be considered as a starting point to more complex sensory studies, a more homogeneous group of consumers was chosen. Age has the biggest impact on people’s perception o f fo o d t ex t u r e s . Yo u n g c h i l d r e n a r e m o r e sensitive to textures (Werthmann et al, 2015) and normally reject textures that are difficult to handle (Szczesniak, 2002). Teenagers have higher acceptability to textures (Szczesniak, 2002), however, Shepherd and Dennison (1996) found that female and male teenagers have different eating behaviors and perceptions to food. For adults, midaged adults have various preferences groups for textures (Kälviäinen, Schlich & Tuorila, 2000), while preference of young adults are more congruent (Kälviäinen et al, 2000). Elderly people with healthy dental condition are likely to have invariant texture perceptions (Mioche, 2004), however, they are more conservative to new textures owing to aging (Szczesniak, 2002). To sum up, young adults aged 20-35 years old have higher acceptability and relatively congruent perception to textures, are chosen to be the target consumers of this project.
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2
Experiencing Food Textures
2.1 Introduction The goal of this phase is to define the perceived texture characteristics that can be investigated in the main study. The texture characteristics should be relevant to shape people’s texture experiences, as well as have impact on oral exposure time. Literature research was conducted to first gain more understanding on food textures (Section 2.3), and how people evaluate and experience food textures (Section 2.3). Moreover, literature research on the existing methodologies of texture studies can provide insights for selecting the appropriate methods for the main study (Section 2.4).
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2.2 What are food textures? According to Szczesniak (2002), textures of food can be defined as; Texture is the sensory and functional manifestation of the structural, mechanical and surface properties of foods detected through the senses of vision, hearing, touch and kinesthetics. There are some properties regarding textures of food; 1. Texture is a multi-sensorial attribute 2 . Te x t u re s ca n b e d e s c r i b e d w i t h m u l t i p l e parameters
People experience food textures with different senses and all the senses involved take part to formulate a holistic experience. Owing to this multi-sensorial property, textures can be described with its mechanical and geometrical characteristics. Mechanical characteristics of textures refer to the reaction of food under stress; hardness, cohesiveness, viscosity, elasticity and adhesiveness are the five main parameters in this category. On the other hand, geometrical characteristics of textures are defined as the shapes, particle size and orientation of the food. The main parameters in this category are denseness, granularity and conformation.
2.3 Experiencing Textures 2.3.1 Introduction Our cognition and senses work together to form a complete sensorial experience (Berthoud, 2007). Experiencing food textures is considered to be sensorial experiences owing to the multi-sensorial properties of textures (Szczesniak, 2002). In the journey of eating, food textures are experienced with different senses (Wilkinson, Dijksterhuis & Minekus, 2000) and are transmitted to the cognitive mechanisms in our brain as sensory cues (Rolls, 2012), at last, our perceptions towards the food textures is formed. To discover how food textures work to shape our eating experiences, it is crucial to derive more knowledges about the journey of experiencing food textures, Section 2.3.2 provides more elaboration on the journey of eating, furthermore the relations between the oral processes and oral exposure time are also addressed. Texture evaluation during oral process is elaborated in Section 2.3.3.
Figure 3. The journey of experiencing food textures
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2.3.2 Oral Processes and oral exposure time The journey of experiencing food textures can be divided into three phases; observation, handling and oral processes (Wilkinson et al., 2000). In each phase, different physical activities are involved, and different senses work to experience food textures and activate sensory cues in different areas in our brains (Rolls, 2012). Figure 3 depicts three phases of experiencing food textures and the involved sensations. Among the three, oral process is considered the most important phase of experiencing textures, owing to the fact that majority of the texture evaluation is conducted in this phase (Wilkinson et al., 2000).The oral processes contains three stages; first bite, mastication and swallow (Rosenthal & Share, 2014; Wilkinson et al., 2000). Figure 4 shows different stages of oral process. In order to swallow food, our teeth, tongue and saliva works together to form the food into a swallowable bolus, and the bolus can be swallowed after reaching the swallow threshold (Rosenthal & Share, 2014).
Based on this concept, the idea of oral exposure time can be perceived as follow: Oral exposure time can be considered as the time needed for the food to form a swallowable bolus and reach the swallow threshold. Rosenthal and Share (2014) introduce two factors that influence the formation of bolus; namely food structure and lubrication. In order to form a bolus, the food structures have to be broken down into small particles, and the degree of lubrication should be high enough as well.
In terms of food textures, structures of food is related with the forces needed to breakdown the structures (Hutchings & Lillford, 1988); while lubrication of food is linked with moisture, which can be referred to fat or water contents of the food (Hutchings & Lillford, 1988). To prolong oral exposure time, the food needs to contain the quality: 1. The structures should take longer time to be broken down 2. Takes longer time to be moisture (less water or fat content)
Figure 4. Different stages in the oral processes
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2.3.3 Oral processes and texture evaluation As mentioned in the previous section, textures of food change continuously in the oral processes. Thus the evaluation of texture can be considered as a dynamic process (De Lavergne, van Delft, van de Velde, van Boekel & Stieger, 2015). In this dynamic process, different texture characteristics are evaluated not simultaneously, but in different stages depends on the condition of food (Pascua et al.). Figure 5 presents the dynamic process for evaluating textures of semi-solid food based on the scheme proposed by Pascua et al. (2013). This insight indicate s that multiple texture characteristics should be selected for the main study to depict the holistic experiences. As mentione d in the previous s e ction (2.2), mechanical texture characteristics refers to the reaction of food under stress, hence it can be used
to describe the textures experiences during the oral processes. Hardness, Fracturability, Chewiness, Viscosity, Elasticity and Adhesiveness are the mechanical parameters used to describe food textures defined by The International Standard Organization (2008), and are commonly used in many textures studies (Rosenthal & Share, 2014; Pascua, Koรง & Foegeding, 2013; Ishihara et al., 2011). Structures of food and degree of lubrication influence oral exposure time, the structures of food can be measured with the aforementioned perceived texture characteristics (Pascua, Koรง & Foegeding, 2013); while the degree of lubrication is related with Moistness (Pascua, Koรง & Foegeding, 2013). As a result, the aforementioned perceived t ex t u r e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s a r e s e l e c t e d t o b e investigated in the main study. Table 1presents the definitions of these selected texture characteristics.
Table 1. The definitions of selected texture characteristics from The International Standard Organization (2008)
First Bite Mastication
Hardness
Fracturability
Swallow
Mouth coating
Adhesiveness Chewiness
Figure 5. The dynamic processes of evaluating textures during oral processes
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2.4 Measuring textures 2.4.1 Overview of existing methodologies Existing methods of measuring textures were reviewed. Three main field of research are involved in texture studies; namely sensory studies, physiological studies and instrumental studies (Wilkinson et al., 2000). The biggest distinction between these studies is their approaches of research. Figure Figure 6 exhibits an overview of methods of the three research fields. Firstly, sensory studies focus on investigating people’s perceptions towards food textures. Therefore, most of the research methods applied in this field aim to create profiles of perceived texture characteristics by analyzing testing samples with participants. Multiple methods are applied by different researchers based on different research goal, whereas the biggest difference among these methods is whether time is considered as an effective factor. The methods that include time factor are named Time Intensity methods, these methods aim to show the intensity or dominance of different texture characteristics during the dynamic oral process. On the other hand, the methods exclude time factor, known as Non-dynamic methods, generate texture profiles of a holistic eating experience. Secondly, physiological studies aim to study textures from the perspective of oral processes. The measurement is mainly based on tracking body movement or food distribution in the mouth. By measuring different oral activities when consuming food, more understanding on food textures can be derived. A common method in physiological
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s t u d i e s i s t r a c k i ng m u s c l e mo v e me nt w i t h Electromyographic (Çakir et al., 2012). At last, instrumental studies understand food textures by the perspective of structures. There are types of instrumental studies (Wilkinson et al., 2000); fundamental, empirical and imitative. The most predominant methods applied in this field are imitative studies, owing to their high comparability with sensory studies (Wilkinson et al., 2000). An example of imitative studies is Texture Profile Analysis (TPA). Structures of food can be studied by imitating mouth biting activities with a TPA analyzer, on which the sample is compressed twice (Huang, Kennedy, Li, Xu & Xie, 2007). Different instrumental texture properties can be derived, such as instrumental hardness or instrumental chewiness, after the calculation of applied forces. To summarize, the three different fields of research all contribute to derive more understanding textures from different perspectives. The approach of sensory studies is selected owing to the fact that this project focuses on providing users a satiating and conscious eating experience, therefore users’ perceptions toward textures are relevant. More elaboration on existing methods of sensory studies is in next section (2.4.2).
Figure 6. The overview of methods for measuring textures
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Figure 6. (Continued) The overview methods of measuring textures
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2.4.2 Sensory studies As mentioned in the previous section, time is the factor used to classify two types of methods in sensory studies. Lawless and Heymann (2010) p r o v i de a de t a i l e d i nt r o d u c t i o n a b o u t Ti me Intensity methods. Time Intensity methods include Continuous Tracking, Temporal Dominance of Sensation (hereinafter referred to as TDS) and Progressive Profiling; while the most prevalent Non-dynamic methods are Free Choice Profiling (hereinafter referred to as FCP), Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (hereinafter referred to as QDA) and Consumer Texture Profile. These methods can be compared in various aspects, Table 2 provides an overview of comparison. For the outcome of different me asurement , generally, less attribute can be measured for Time Intensity methods owing to the complicated evaluation processes; however, texture trajectory can be created with Time Intensity methods. On the other hand, Non-dynamic methods, such as QDA, can provide holistic profiles of more texture attributes.
The re quirement of the traine d p anelists is another points worth to discuss. Participants should be equipped with understanding of texture terminology used in the test , for some Time Intensity methods, participants also need to be familiar with the operation of data collecting software. Some methods, such as QDA, requires a lot of time to train panelists; while the others, for instance TDS or Progressive Profiling, only require little or no training depending on the tasks (De Lavergne et al., 2015). At last, FCP is the only method which requires not trained participants, owing to the fact that participants are asked to create their own texture lexicon in the beginning of the evaluation (GuĂ rdia, Aguiar, Claret, Arnau & Guerrero, 2010). Owing to the time and resources limitation, the methods require participants with less training or no training are ideal for this project. Moreover, the terminology of texture characteristics should be adjusted to the terms that are more familiar to the participants.
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Table 2. Comparisons of different methods of sensory studies
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2.5 Conclusion The phase oral processes in the journey of eating is selected to be further investigated, owing to the fact that most of the textures evaluations happen in this phase. Hardness, Facturability, Chewiness, Viscosity, Elasticity, Adhesiveness and Moistness are the chosen perceived texture characteristics that should be used to evaluate the food samples in the main study. Unlike most of the descriptive textures analyses, no sensory panelists are used in the test owing to the time constraints of the project. Hence these selected textures parameters should be transformed into alternative terms that are easier to be understood by the participants.
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3
Conscious Eating
3.1 Introduction Both satiation and consciousness play important roles to control calories intake and terminating eating activities. The relevance of oral exposure time on satiation has been addressed by many existing studies (Larsen et al, 2016; Hogenkamp & Schiรถth 2013; de Graaf, 2012). However, there is little known about the factors that contribute to conscious eating in terms of textural experiences i n t he o r a l p r o ce s s e s . To d i s co v e r p o s s i b l e determinants for conscious snacking that can be used in the main study, two main research questions were formulated: 1. What are the experiential factors that can increase the level of consciousness while snacking in the phase of oral processes? 2. What factors make people more conscious about the amount of snacks they eat in the phase of oral processes? The first question aims to discover factors that contribute to being conscious about the activity of eating; while the second question specifically focuses on being conscious about the quantity of food consumption. The first question can be answered in Chapter 3.2, which elaborates on the result and process of three qualitative sessions. Furthermore the second question can be answered in Chapter 3.3, seven interviews were conducted and analyzed. At last, Chapter 3.4 concludes the results as the determinants for the main study.
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3.2 Conscious eating activity 3.2.1 Introduction This chapter presents the processes and the results of the first qualitative research: to discover factors for conscious eating during the oral processes while eating snacks, to answer the first research question. A pilot study (Chapter 3.2.2) was first conducted to examine and improve the design of studies; two studies (Chapter 3.2.3) were conducted in different snacking contexts. The data was analyzed by a statement card analysis (Chapter 3.2.4) and the results are presented in Chapter 3.2.5.
Figure 7. Pilot Study
3.2.2 Pilot Study The aim of the qualitative study is to discover the factors that can be regarded as determinants for conscious snacking when experiencing textures. Therefore, if the participants acknowledge the purposes of the study, it would be more difficult to identify the determinants since they would be conscious while experiencing different snacks.
Table 3. Study Protocal: Pilot study
There are two criteria to define whether the study design is effective: 1. The participants ate snacks during the session. 2. Among all the snacks eaten by the participants, the participants should be able to identify the most impressive ones and describe the experiences in details.
The study should be designed in a way which e n a b l e s p a r t i c i p a n t s ex p e r i e n c i n g s n a c k s innocently and naturally. In other words, the study should be conducted under the conditions where people’s attention was dominated by other subjects. A pilot session was held to examine and improve the design of the studies. The pilot study was held in a room in the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology. Five participants aged 20 to 35 were recruited without knowing the actual research goal of the study. Table 4 shows more information about the participants. The study was conducted as an 30-minutes ideation session, in which the participants were instructed to ideate on a topic unrelated with the research (Appendix B.1). A plate of various snacks (Figure 8) was presented to each participant as most of the ideation sessions normally do. After the session, individual interviews were conducted regarding on the experiences of snacking in session. Table 3 shows the study protocol.
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The session can be considered effective and fruitful. During the session, four out of five participants consumed snacks served on the plates. The only one participant who did not consume anything was 10 minutes late for the session, and explained that the reason of not consuming is that she intended to catch up the progress. In the interview, the participants were able to point out and describe the most impressive snacks among all the eaten ones. Table 4. Information about the participants No.
Age
Gender
Cultural Background
1
20-25
Female
China
2
20-25
Female
Indonesia
3
25-30
Female
China
4
25-30
Female
Turkey
5
30-35
Male
Taiwan
Figure 8. Snacks presented in pilot study
On the other hand, the participants also addressed some points to be improved. Firstly, even though the participants did consume snacks, but the quantity and variety of their consumption were limited. This could be improved from extending the time for the session, and designing some activities that require less physical activities. The group ideation requires more physical movement, during these activities, the participants’ hands were occupied with pens or post-its, hence the participants reported to consume less snacks. To create a session which facilitates more snacking, the length of the session is adjusted from 30 minutes to one hour; and a discussion based session, where participants’ hands are expected to be free, is designed to replace the group ideation activity. Moreover, during the ideation session, participants had to share and discuss their ideas with the group, owing to this characteristics, some participants felt restricted to consume certain types of snacks. Generally, the participants tend to restrict themselves from eating the snacks that make noises or the snacks that stay longer in the mouth. The main reason is that they had to do a lot of talking in the session, and these two kinds of snacks were expected to hinder talking. The feedback suggests that the selection of snacks is context dependent, in order to gain a holistic view on people’s textural experiences and exclude the context specific factors, another session in different context should be designed. Table 5 presents all the feedback and improvement from the pilot study.
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Table 5. Feedback and improvement
3.2.3 Set up of the Study Based on the improvement made in the pilot study, two separate studies in different contexts were designed. Study I was held as an ideation session, while Study I was held as a two hours movie screening session. Individual interviews regarding on snacking experiences in the session were conducted after both sessions, for the interview script, see Appendix B.2. Various types of snacks were offered in two studies, the selection of snacks followed the below criteria. 1. The selected snacks should cover most of the snacks categories defined in Appendix A.1. 2. The snacks should be suitable in the testing context (Study I: Ideation session, Study II: Movie screening activity).
Study I Study I was held as an one-hour ideation session at 14:00 in the faculty of Industrial De sign Engineering, TU Delft. Five students from TU Delft, aged 25 to 35 were rewcruited as participants (Table 7). A topic unrelated with the research goal was selected for ideating, the activities in the session were designed to include less physical movement
to facilitate snack eating. Table 6 depicts the activities included in the session. The discussion topics used in the session can be viewed in Appendix B.3.
Table 6. Activities in Study I
3. The snacks should provide different textural experiences. 4. The snacks should be perceived ‘common’ in The Netherlands, hence should be purchased in the two biggest retailers (Jumbo and Albert Heijn) Table 7. Information of participants in Study I No.
Age
Gender
Cultural Background
1
20-25
Male
Taiwan
2
25-30
Female
South Korea
3
25-30
Female
South Korea
4
25-30
Male
China
5
25-30
Male
Mexico
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11 types of snacks (Figure 9) were presented in plastic plates in the session, each participant was provided with one plate of snacks. Drinks were also provided in the session. Lipton Sparkling Ice Tea were selected, owing to the fact that the tastes is not too strong, and is suitable to drink with both savory and sweet snacks.
Figure 9. Snacks presented in Study I 40
Figure 10. Study I
Study II Study II was held as an two-hours movie screening session from 21:30 to 23:00 in Neverland Cinema, Rotterdam. Six audiences presented in the cinema were recruited as participants (Table 8). The snacks were distributed before the screening, and individual interviews were conducted in the cinema after the movie. Considering the context of movie screening, two types of snacks combinations (Figure 11) were offered in plastic cups; one filled with savory snacks, while another filled with sweet snacks. Participants were able to choose among the two based on their preferences. The snacks were presented on a table next to the bar, audiences were encouraged to take the snacks without telling them the purposes of the research. After the movie, a brief introduction regarding the research was made, in order to recruit interviewees. Table 8. Information about the participants presented in Study II No.
Age
Gender
Cultural Background
1
20-25
Male
Italy
2
25-30
Male
Iran
3
25-30
Female
Iran
4
25-30
Female
Albania
5
25-30
Male
Iran
6
30-35
Male
Iran Figure 11. Two types of snacks containers presented in Study II
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Figure 12. Test environment of Study II
3.2.4 Data Collection and Analysis In both Study I and II, individual interviews were recorded and translated into transcripts. The insightful quotes were interpreted into statement cards, and a statement card analysis was done with three other designers. The three other designers with different expertise were recruited. Among the three, two designers have had experiences of conducting statement card analysis, whereas one designer has no experience, thus a 30 minutes training was offered to him. For more details of the designers, see Figure 13.
The transcripts were distributed to the three d e s i g n e r s b e fo r e h a n d , e a c h d e s i g n e r w a s responsible to complete his own statement cards before the analysis. Owing to the complexity of the project, a brief introduction, including the research setup and explanation of terminology was given to the designers before providing the transcripts. A one and half hours analysis s e s sion was conducted. During the analysis, statement cards completed by each designer were collected and clustered, the result of the session will be elaborated in next chapter.
Figure 13. Profile of designers who presented in the Statement Card Analysis
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Figure 14. Statement Card Analysis
3.2.5 Result
Perceivable textures changes in the mouth leads to conscious snacking
Longer oral exposure time increases conscious level
In the journey of experiencing textures (see Chapter 2), three phases are involved; observation, handling and oral process. The collected insights play significant roles in different phases and sometimes interplay with each others (Figure 15). However, not all the insights are relevant in terms of textural experiences during oral process. To answer the first research question, the selected insights that are;
Snacks that have uniform mouthfeel normally lead to unconscious eating. Zhang indicated that if there is no perceivable difference between each bite of the snacks, their conscious level is relatively low.
Oral exposure time plays a role in conscious eating, when the snacks stay longer in the mouth, the participants tend to be more conscious about the snacks. Shahrokh indicated that the LU Scholiertje Biscuits Pure Chocolate is “distracting” for him as it took more time to be swallowed. Moreover Pietro compared the LU Scholiertje Biscuits Pure Chocolate with Haribo Gummy Bear, and thought that the biscuits were more impressive to him due to the longer time the biscuits took in his mouth.
1. Related with textural experiences. 2. Play significant roles in the phase of oral processes. Six insights were selected and are elaborated below, all the collected insights can be viewed in Appendix B.4.
“And this thing (Chio Heart Breaker) has uniform textures for every single piece and bite, so you can keep eating it without counting how many you have eaten.” - Zhang
On the other hand, if the textural transformation in the mouth is perceivable, people tend to be more conscious. Ling was able to recall her experiences of eating the marshmallow vividly, owing to the textures of marshmallow changed from soft to melting in her mouth. “But I still have the impression to its textures, because of the unique textures of marshmallow, the first bit you felt soft, and it melted in your mouth.” - Ling
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“…the chocolate melted in my mouth, goes slow down…it was distracting.” - Shahrokh “…you can eat in smaller pieces, you can enjoy for longer….the jelly bear is just, yes, 5 seconds. Because you just chew it, and 5 seconds, that’s it. But the cookies, take a bit longer.” - Pietro
Figure 15. All the insights derived from the Statement Card Analysis
More efforts, more conscious
The feeling of surprise increases the level of consciousness
When participants intended to be concentrate, they tend to choose the snacks that are perceived less effort or “easy” to consume. In other words, the snacks that take people less effort to consume have little impact on increasing conscious level.
People made their food choice before eating based on the expectation formed during the observation phase. Thus when the textures are surprising, p e o p l e h a v e s t r o n g e r i m p r e s s i o n . P e o p l e ’s expectation of textures are mainly related with two senses; tactility (mouthfeel) and auditory (sounds) in oral process.
“Becasue it’s discussion, so it’s easy if I ate something just melt away so I don’t have to …I can talk easily.” - Sakiinah
In contrast, Guilimore implied that when the snacks that took them more efforts to chew, he tend to be more conscious. Guilimore described the way that he could “torn” the gummy bears with his teeth. “ Yes, I think the textures, like the way you can torn the part with your teeth, that’s the thing I like… when you were chewing, so when you’re breaking down the gummy bear…” - Guilimore
Sticky texture is another example, participants considered sticky textures “distracted,” for instance, the quote from Zhang indicates that people need to spend more efforts when dealing with sticky textures, because “..it sticks right there.” “When you’re eating…you can’t think, because when you bite it…and it sticks right there, it’s very distracted.” - Zhang
“I didn’t expect there are something crispy inside, so it was a bit surprising.” - Alev “I think the feeling is quite close to my expectation, so I was happy, but there was also a little bit difference…” - Zhang
Both Alev and Zhang indicated that unexpected mouthfeel gave them stronger impressions to the experiences, and there were more conscious while eating. Moreover, the unexpected sounds brought by chewing is another aspect in unexpected textural experiences. G Young had stronger impression to Jumbo Yamato mix, owing to the fact that the sounds which created were out of her expectation. “I didn’t know that it makes so much sounds.” - G Young
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Feeling of full mouth
Noisy snacks can make people more conscious Sounds created while chewing certain snacks can increase the conscious level while eating. Two reasons were mentioned by the participants; sounds as feedback, and sounds reduce the quality of current experiences. Firstly, sounds can be perceived as feedback for chewing, with the feedback, people are more affirmative that they are chewing. Alev compared the snacks that create sounds and the snacks that are more silent, such as marshmallows; she regarded sounds as feedback of her chewing activity, and she was more conscious with the ‘noisy snacks.’ “…the feeling of eating something is more apparent, because you chew and it makes sounds, so its like, yes, you’re eating something.” - Alev “…for marshmallow, you’re eating it, but it just goes away. I feel like I am eating for nothing, purposeless.” - Alev
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Furthermore, another reason is that noisy snacks can sometimes reduce the quality of people’s experiences. In both study I and II, participants were placed in the situations where making too much noises is inappropriate. Therefore, both Nasim and Lee were conscious when the snacks made sounds, because it is related with the quality of their experiences; for Nasim was watching movie; for Lee was ideation session. “…I wanted to keep eating as I was seeing the movie, but it required a little bit of attention to avoid troubling anyone else, by making sounds. So it did distract me a bit.” - Nasim “But I was trying to not make sound…Because people were talking, and I don’t want to get… extra attention, or I don’t want to be rude.” - Lee
Snacks with bigger sizes are considered ‘distracted’ to people. Zhang indicated that he intentionally chose the snacks with smaller sizes, because he did not want to be distracted too much with the task that he was doing. “ I started with picking those small ones,…I didn’t choose the bigger ones. But for the small ones, they only took three to five seconds, you can just start working anytime you need to be concentrate.” - Zhang Moreover, Lu indicated that he was impressed with the size and the feeling of “filling up the mouth” when he put the marshmallow into his mouth. “it was more like it (marshmallow) is a big-sized thing filing up my mouth and I compressed it in my mouth…” -Lu These insights imply that the sizes of the food i n f l u e n c e s p e o p l e ’s s n a c k i n g ex p e r i e n c e s significantly during the oral processes. Additionally, if the snacks elicit the feeling of ‘full mouth,’ people can have a more conscious snacking experience.
3.2.6 Discussion In this study, people’s snacking experiences was investigated under two different contexts; ideation session and movie screening session. The goal is to define determinants for conscious eating that can be measured in the main study. The results show that six selected insights and there are some points to be discussed. Firstly, most of the factors participants mentioned are related with textures. Tastes and smells were also mentioned but with a comparatively less quantity. The possible reason might be related to the multisensorial characteristics of textures (Szczesniak, 2002); unlike tastes and smells, people experience textures with various sensations, such as auditory, tactility and kinesthesis, so stronger impression could be made. Secondly, people regard perceivable change in mouth as a relevant factor for being conscious. This insight echoes with the texture evaluation model proposed by Pascua et al. (2013), which implies that people evaluate textures not simultaneously but evaluate texture properties in a certain orders. Whereas, the “dynamic” aspect of textures evaluation should be taken into account in the main study. Thirdly, noisy snacks increase the conscious level. As addressed in a study of Duizer (2001), chewing sounds are used to evaluate the degree of Fracturability, for instance Crunchy and Crumbly. He nce , Fr a c t u r a b i l i t y ca n b e r e fe r r e d whe n measuring textural experiences.
Fourthly, the feeling of ‘the food fills up the mouth’ has impact on people’s snacking experiences. The feeling of “filling up” is related with mouthful sizes. There is no existing study regarding the relations of mouthful sizes and consciousness, but a study by Kohyama et al. (2016) proposes the relationships between mouthful sizes and oral exposure time. Kohyama et al. (2016) demonstrates the increase of mouthful sizes of gels leads to the increase of longer total oral exposure time. Thus based on the findings in this study, it is assumed that mouthful sizes of food has impact on both conscious snacking and satiation. At last, an obser vation was made during the research; people do not have enough textural lexicon, as well as common understandings to the same term. Owing to the fact that the research was conducted to investigate textural experiences of participants, so there was no any terminology explanation beforehand, the participants were able to use any term they preferred. However, most of the participants only use limited terms when describing textures, and sometimes applied the same terms to describe different textures. In the main study, describing different texture characteristics for the samples is relevant, whereas explanation of terminology, and developing a lexicon that is easy for the participants to understand is crucial.
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3.3 Conscious Quantity 3.3.1 Introduction
3.3.2 Research setup, Data collection and Analysis
To answer the second research question: factors that relate with being conscious about the quantity of snack consumption during oral process, seven interviews were conducted and analyzed (Chapter 3.3.2), the result is shown in Chapter 3.3.3.
Seven individual interviews were conducted with participants aged 20 to 35 (Table 9) in the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. Appendix B.5. shows the scripts used in the interviews. The data was first recorded and transformed into transcripts, the relevant quotes were transformed into insights by the designer.
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Table 9. Information about the participants No.
Age
Gender
Cultural Background
1
20-25
Male
Taiwan
2
25-30
Female
Turkey
3
25-30
Female
Taiwan
4
30-35
Male
Taiwan
5
30-35
Male
Taiwan
6
30-35
Female
South Korea
7
30-35
Female
South Korea
Figure 16. Interview conducted to discover the determiants for conscious quantity
3.3.3 Result The insights were categorized into the journey of eating, as seen in Figure 17, there are a lot of factors that have impact on being aware of the consumption quantity while snacking. Only the factors related to the phase of oral processes are selected and presented below. For more elaborations on the factors that are not presented here, see Appendix B.6.
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Figure 17. All the insights from the interviews
Physical feedback, such as satiation, makes people aware of the amount they eat
When the snacks stay longer in the mouth, people are more conscious about the quantity
More manipulations
Receiving physical feedbacks is an important factor for being conscious about the amount of consumption. Lin explained that he normally stops snacking when he “does not feel hungry,” the feeling of “not hungry” can be regarded as physical feedbacks derived from food consumption.
Subjective longer oral exposure time is also considered as a significant factor for people. Both Chang and Sönmez indicated that they are more conscious about the amount they consume when the snacks stay longer in their mouth. Because people tend to feel that “I have already eaten a lot,” explained by Chang.
Some snacks enable people to manipulate more during oral process, and people are more conscious about the quantity by more manipulations in the mouth. Go described her complicated process of eating Oreo cookies, with these complicated manipulations, she is able to count and be highly conscious about the number of Oreos she eats.
“I always eat snacks in the afternoon when feeling hungry, so I stop when I don’t feel hungry, because I don’t want to be too satiated that I don’t have stomach for my dinner.” - Lin
Moreover, the degree of satiation is not the only parameter people use. Kai said that when he feels his blood sugar increases, he tend to be conscious about the amount of snacks he eats. “...when this thing is very sweet or something it can be decomposed in a shorter times, it makes your blood sugar rises quickly...eating these kind of snacks I tend to feel that I have eaten a lot.” - Kao
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“...if you spend longer time to process one piece of snacks, like digestive cookies,...I feel like I have already eaten a lot, so I tend to be more conscious about the amount.” - Chang “...like some candies, and it takes longer time to swallow, I think I am more conscious.” - Sönmez
“I always divide the piece (Oreo), I eat that cap of the Oreo cookie first, and I lick the cream with my tongue....so I can be more conscious, because I have to see and I have to separate (Oreo) with my eyes and with my teeth, and I check the quantity of the cream…” - Go
3.3.4 Discussion Three factors are considered relevant for being conscious about the quantity during the phase of oral processes: receiving physical feedbacks, subjective longer oral exposure time, and more manipulations in the mouth. Firstly, receiving physical feedback is a relevant factor, and different people use different types of feedback as parameters. However, it is difficult to measure physical feedback in a relatively short testing time. Furthermore, being conscious about eating activity can lead to receiving physical feedbacks, thus this factor is excluded from the main study by measuring the degree of being conscious for the eating activity. Secondly, the importance of oral exposure time on conscious eating is elaborate in the previous chapter (Chapter 4.2.5). For being conscious about the quantity of consumption, it also plays a significant role. The oral exposure time described here is the subjective oral exposure time perceived by eaters, it is different from the objective oral exposure time which influences satiation. It is worth to discover the relationship between subjective and objective oral exposure time in the main study.
At last, more manipulations in the mouth is related to the degree that people apply their tongue, lips, saliva and mastication muscles. It is related with one of the factors found in the first research: perceived efforts. Both of the aforementioned two factors are associated with the degree of the mouth activities. However, there are still differences in the level of control. The perceived efforts is simply related to the degree of mouth activities people apply during mastication (Brown & Braxton, 2000); people can apply various mouth movements to a sticky candy even though they do not intend to do it. While manipulation involves certain degree of control and intention of performing the movements, Belasco (2008) indicates that manipulating food is a way to show control over food. An example is that people can manipulate a chewing gum with their tongue and mastication muscles not because they have to, but because they intend to.
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3.4 Conclusion: Determinants for Conscious Snacking This study aims to define determinants that are related with conscious snacking activity and being conscious about the quantity. Seven determinants were defined and categorized:
Conscious Snacking - Perceivable change in the mouth - Feeling Surprised - Fills up the mouth - Efforts Being Conscious about the quantity of consumption - Allow more manipulation in the mouth - Sound feedback while chewing - Stays longer in the mouth (subjective)
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4
Designer's Toolbox
for manipulating food textures
4.1 Introduction Food plays the most essential role in the journey of eating, and can be regarded as design interventions to contribute, shape or enhance our eating experiences. The aim of this phase is to create food prototypes with various textures and distinct oral exposure time, in order to create the samples that can be utilized in the main study. Moreover, to design the intended eating experiences, it is vital to provide a guide: Designer’s Toolbox for manipulating food textures, on how to manipulate and create the desired textures in the perspectives of a designer. After an exploration of the existing food products on the market, carrot, chocolates and pork were chosen as the main food ingredients to use for prototyping textures. More information is elaborated in Chapter 4.2. Textures prototypes were created by applying existing cooking techniques as well as incorporating designer’s own creative ideas. 83 textures prototypes were made and documented. Chapter 4.3 provides more details.
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4.2 Selecting the main food ingredients The goal of this phase is to select the food ingredients that can be ser ved as the main ingredients for prototyping. The main ingredients should meet the following criteria: 1. The food ingredient should enable the designer to create various textures. 2. The food ingredient should offer distinct oral exposure time. Texture Profile
To find the potential ingredient, it is efficient to compare the textures variety of different food ingredients on the market. To compare the variety of textures of different food ingredients, an evaluation was conducted by the designer individually after tasting each food product. The evaluation was made by assessing the mechanical texture characteristics from the ISO standard (2008) of the product. In addition, the oral exposure time was measured by calculating chew counts (Hogenkamp Schiรถth, 2013).
Food Category
Beef
Product Name
AH Filet Americain
Ingredient Contents
65% meat, sunflower oil, water, salt, free-range egg yolk extract, rice starch, vinegar, spices, tomato, apple concentrate, sugar, dextrose, milk powder, milk protein , natural flavors, yeast extract, antioxidant, preservative, acid, thickeners
Calories 270 kcal/100g Flavour
Salty
Oral Exposure Time 6-7 chews/bite Texture Characteristics Adhesiveness
Hardness
A booklet was created to document and compare all the result, Figure 18 shows a page in the booklet, for the complete booklet, see Appendix C.1. To sum up, carrots, pork and chocolates were selected as the main ingredients for further prototyping. Among all the evaluated products, various texture characteristics were observed on the products made with carrots, pork and chocolates; as well as distinct chew counts were also recorded with the three ingredients.
Chewiness (Cohesiveness)
Springiness
Viscosity
Fracturability (Cohesiveness)
Figure 18. Evaluation of different food ingredients in the booklet
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4.3 Creating Textures 4.3.1 Introduction The selected three main food ingredients: carrot, pork and chocolates, were utilized to create textures variations. Prototypes with different textures were successfully created. Two aspects were concluded to have the biggest contributions when manipulation of textures; different methods of prototyping (section 4.3.2), and different characteristics of the main ingredients (section 4.3.3). To present the result efficiently, a online web blog was created as the outcome of this phase (Chapter 4.3.4).
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4.3.2 Prototyping Methods Before prototyping, a preliminary research on existing techniques, recipes and food additives were conducted to gain more insights. Cooking is a practice that evolves continuously with our food environment and the development of technology. Therefore, both modern and traditional cooking techniques and ingredients were researched. Two online resources were mainly referred: educational websites for molecular gastronomy and traditional recipes and video tutorials. Figure 19 summarizes different methods to create or manipulate food textures. Different food textures can be created by adding extra ingredients, and applying different cooking techniques. Firstly, the texture characteristics of the raw ingredients can be changed by adding different ingredients. For instance, by adding 40% of Tapioca Maltodextrin, which is a substances derived from roots of tapioca, the melted chocolate becomes into chocolate powder. This is owing to the cocoa fats inside the chocolate is absorbed by Tapioca Maltodextrin. Moreover, the concentration of the added ingredients also plays a role. An example is that by adding 6% and 13% of gelatin sheets into carrot juice, resulted in a soft and a firm gel respectively.
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Secondly, different textures can also be created by applying various cooking techniques. For instance, by mixing melted chocolate and water with a whisker, a mousse-like textures can be created. M o r e t ex t u r e s c a n a l s o b e c r e a t e d b y t h e combinations of adding extra ingredients and applying specific cooking techniques. For example, a film-like translucent carrot sheet can be created by adding Tapioca Maltodextrin and the technique of dehydration.
Figure 19. Different methods to create or manipulate textures of food
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4.3.3 Characteristics of carrot, chocolates and pork Owing to the distinct characteristics of carrots, chocolates and pork, different textures can be created. The characteristics can be discussed in two facets: textural characteristics of the raw materials, and limitations for manipulations. Table 10 compares characteristics of the three ingredients. Firstly, raw carrots are hard and crunchy, and can be shaped into various forms by different techniques, such as pilling, cutting and blending. Carrots have high cellulose and water contents, which creates a moisture yet moderately chewy texture. The aforementioned characteristics make carrot quite versatile in terms of creating different textures, it can adapt most of the hydrocolloids and food additives, however, owing to its high water contents, it is comparatively difficult to create creamy mouthfeel without adding considerable amount of other food ingredients or additives. Se condly, cho colate contains co co a, co co a butter and sugar; owing to the fact that there are numerous types of chocolate products on the market, with different cocoa contents and food additives, it should be clarified that the chocolates product used in this project is Verkade Kook Chocolate 74%. Chocolates have a relatively low melting temperature compared with the other two materials, it melts between 45 to 50 degree Celsius. For the first few bites, it is crunchy, and the hardness ranges from moderate to high level. Owing to its low melting temperature, it normally melts in the mouth and creates a melting and
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creamy mouthfeel. This temperature sensitive characteristics makes it difficult to manipulate with cooking procedures that involved high temperature, for instance, adding hydrocolloid which is active in high temperatures. To create various textures, a considerable amount of additional ingredient is normally involved, such as milk, water or egg white. At last, the pork products used here is Jumbo ribkarbonade, which is derived from the back of pigs. The reason of selecting this specific part is that it consists of bones, relatively smaller portions of fats and large portions of lean meat . The combination of the three parts enables abundant applications, such as both lean meat and bones can be used to make pork terrine. Comparing with the other two ingredients, pork has more limitation for serving: for the food safety, it has to be fully cooked. In addition, people have a relatively smaller range of texture acceptability to animal products, when experiencing the unfamiliar textures from animal products, the emotion of “disgusted� is often elicited (Martins & Pliner, 2006; Fischler, 1988). On the other hand, pork can adapt higher temperature than the other two ingredients, it is suitable to apply certain cooking procedures involved high temperatures, such as baking, dehydration and smoking.
To sum up, textures variations can be created with the three distinct food ingredients. Carrots have higher adaptability to hydrocolloids and food additives; chocolate can create melting and creamy textures owing to it sensitivity to temperatures, while pork is perfect for hightemperature involved cooking procedures.
Table 10. Comparisons between the three main ingredients
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4.3.4 Documentation: Designer’s Toolbox for manipulating food textures This phase can be concluded with the development of Designer’s Toolbox. Designer’s Toolbox provides a practical guide for creating different textures with carrot, chocolates and pork. In total, 83 prototypes were created. All the p r o t o t y p i n g p r o c e s s e s a n d o u t c o me s w e r e documented in an online web blog, the link is displayed below. https://designerstoolbox.tumblr.com/
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It is difficult to present food textures properly without actual experiencing the prototypes, an online platform was chosen owing to the variety of media that can be displayed. For each prototype or each set of prototypes, pictures and written explanation regarding textural experiences and prototyping processes were provided. In addition, videos were also attached to present certain textures. Figure 20 shows a representable page in the web blog.
Figure 20. A representable page of the web blog
5
Main Study
5.1 Introduction The goal of the main study is to investigate the relationships between the determinants for conscious and satiating snacking experiences and the perceived texture characteristics. In order to derive more understanding regarding conscious and satiating snacking experiences in the oral processes and develop a set of guidelines for the designers working for the food industry. Table 11 presents all the determinants for conscious and satiating snacking experiences that are assessed in this study. Objective oral exposure time is the determinant for satiation, while rest of the determinants are indicators for conscious snacking. The relevance of Objective oral exposure time has been presented by many existing studies (Chapter 1); while the determinants for conscious snacking were defined from the previous qualitative research (Chapter 3).
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Table 11. The determinants for conscious and satiating snacking experiences
Conscious Snacking Perceivable shape change in the mouth Feeling suprised during oral processes More Efforts More manipulations with tongue, lips and mastication muscles Receiving sounds feedback during oral processes Subjective oral exposure time Satiation Objective oral exposure time
In addition, Table 12 presents the the perceived texture characteristics derived from The International Organization for Standardization ( 2 0 0 8 ) . T h e s e t ex t u r e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s w e r e discussed in Chapter 2 and considered relevant for describing textures experiences and prolonging oral exposure time.
Table 12. Perceived texture characteristics derived from the International Organization for Standardization (2008)
Perceived Textures Characteristics
83 samples were created in the previous prototyping phase (Chapter 4). Owing to the large amount of samples, a sample evaluation was first conducted to select representable samples in the study (Chapter 5.2). In the main test, 28 participants were recruited to test 8 selected food samples (Chapter 5.3). Prior to the analysis, the number of determinants and the perceived texture characteristics were reduced by Principle Component Analyses (Chapter 5.3.5), to simplify the outcomes. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted on each determinant and the perceived texture characteristics (Chpater 5.4.2); comparisons were also made between Objective oral exposure time and Subjective oral exposure time (Chapter 5.4.3). The results and discussion are presented in Chapter 5.4 and 5.5 respectively.
Hardness Fracturability Chewiness Viscosity Elasticity Adhesiveness Moistness
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5.2 Sample Evaluation 5.2.1 Introduction 83 samples were made in the prototyping phase (Chapter 4); the list of the samples can be viewed in Appendix D.1. To conduct the study efficiently, a sample evaluation was first conducted to reduce sample size and select the representable samples. The evaluation consists of two sequential parts; a preliminary evaluation by the designer, and a main evaluation with target users. Table 13 compares the two evaluations.
Figure 21. The preliminary evaluation reduced the samples from 83 to 16 based on their perceived texture characteristics, all the selected samples represent distinct combinations of different texture characteristics. Chapter 5.2.2 elaborates more details. The main evaluation (Chapter 5.2.3) was conducted with target users. The goal is to select samples that represent different degrees of the conscious and satiating determinants. The number of samples was reduced from 16 to 8 (Chapter 5.2.4).
Table 13. The processes and comparisons between the two evaluations.
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Figure 22. The food samples presented in the main evaluation
5.2.2 Preliminary Evaluation B e fo r e c o n d u c t i n g t h e m a i n e v a l u a t i o n , a preliminary evaluation was conducted by the designer individually. The goal was to reduce the number of samples for the main evaluation. The designer evaluated samples based on their perceived texture characteristics from the scale from 1 to 10, in order to select samples with distinct textures combinations. All the 83 samples were rated based on the perceived textures parameters, for the scores of all the samples, see Appendix D.2. To get ideas about how the samples can be allocated without specifying a fixed number of clusters, a Hierarchical Cluster Analysis was selected to conduct with IBM SPSS software. Table 14 depicts the 17 clusters as outcome with means and standard errors as indications.
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To select one sample from each cluster, two a s s e s s m e nt c r i t e r i a w e r e c r e a t e d ; n a m e l y proportion of the main ingredients and feasibility. Firstly, the selected the samples should contain as much main ingre dients (p ork, carrots or chocolates) as possible, owing to the fact that the guidelines also play roles as demonstrations for manipulating textures of the main ingredients. Secondly, the feasibility for sample preparation is also considered a relevant factor. Considerable amount of samples will be prepared for the main test, thus the selected samples should easily prepared and have the similar quality. For instance, the selected samples could be preserved in the fridge and no complicated processes such as reheating are required upon arrival to the testing environment. As a result, 16 samples (Pork=3, Carrot =7, Chocolates=6) were selected for the main evaluation. The complete evaluation based on the criteria for each cluster can be viewed in Appendix D.3.
Table 14. Characteristics of each cluster
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5.2.3 Evaluation To reduce the amount of samples for the main study, a main evaluation was conducted to reduce the 16 samples selected by the designer. In the main study, participants are asked to assess the textures parameters, oral exposure time and determinants for conscious eating for each sample. Thus the number of samples should be 8, in order to not overwhelm the participants and derive a good result. The goal of the main study is to discover the correlations between texture parameters and determinants. Hence, the sample selection was based on the conscious and satiating determinants, to select samples that are rated distinctly for the determinants. A questionnaire was developed t o a s s e s s t h e s a m p l e s ( A p p e n d i x D. 6 ) . T h e determinants for conscious and satiating snacking experiences were investigated in the questionnaire. In addition, two evaluation factors were also involved; liking of the tastes and acceptability. These two factors were investigated as the criteria for assessing samples. More elaborations are in the next section (5.2.4).
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12 participants aged 20 to 35 were recruited in Delft University of Technology to assess 16 samples. For the evaluation procedure, see Appendix D.5. The K-Means Cluster Analysis was selected as the method to group the samples. Owing to the fact that the aim of the evaluation is to reduce the samples number from 16 to 8, K-Means Cluster Analysis can group the samples into a pre-defined number of clusters. IBM SPSS software was utilized to conduct the analysis and clustered the samples into 8 clusters (Table 15).
Table 15. Characteristics of the 8 clusters. Highest Lowest
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Table 16. All the samples and the selected sample in each cluster.
5.2.4 Criteria and The selected Samples Three criteria were developed to select one sample from each cluster: proportions of the main ingredients, liking of the tastes and snacks acceptability. Tastes of food have significant impact on people’s eating experiences, to avoid that tastes override people’s textures experiences, selecting samples rated higher on their liking of the taste were desired. Moreover, the general acceptability as snacks is also utilized as one criterion. Owing to the fact that the guidelines are specifically designed for snacks, it is relevant to select samples with higher acceptability to create applicable guidelines. 8 samples were selected as the result, Table 16 shows all the samples, and the selected samples within each cluster are marked with light blue background.
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Table 16 (Continued). All the samples and the selected sample in each cluster.
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5.3 Materials and Methods 5.3.1 Sample preparation 8 samples were assessed in the main study. All the samples were prepared by the designer within two days before the test owing to concerns for food safety. Considering two categories of determinants are assessed in the main study; the determinants for conscious snacking, and objective oral exposure time as the indicator for satiation, two different stimuli were prepared for each food sample.
To measure Objective oral exposure time, the weight of the stimuli should be uniform (de Graaf, 2012; Hogenkamp & Schiรถth, 2013 ). On the other hand, the sizes of the stimuli are assumed to have impact on assessing the determinants for conscious snacking; for instance, the determinant Fills up the mouth is assumed to be highly related with the size of stimuli.
Therefore, two sets of stimuli were prepared: Set 1: Same volume Set 2: Same weight
Figure 23. 8 Food samples presented in the test and the assigned numbers 84
The samples in set 1 have identical volume (5 cm3) and are coded as [Sample Number]- 1, in order to investigate the snacking experiences; while the samples in set 2 are used to measure oral exposure time and coded as [Sample Number]- 2, whereas have the same weight (5g). Figure 23 shows the 8 samples presented in the test with the assigned numbers, Figure 24 depicts two sets of samples.
Figure 24. Two sets of samples for measuring oral exposure time and textures experiences.
5.3.2 Participants
5.3.3 Questionnaire and Measuring objective oral exposure time
28 participants were recruited in Delft University of Technology. The participants are spread in genders (16 males), and meet the criteria of the target customers mentioned in Chapter 2: young adults aged between 20 to 35. Table 17 shows the spread of the participants.
A questionnaire regarding perceived textures and experiences of the samples was designed (Appendix D.6). The perceived texture characteristics and conscious and satiating determinants are measured with a 9-points scale. Considering no training was offered to the participants, a more descriptive lexicon should be provided. The perceived texture characteristics defined in ISO standards (2008) were substituted by alternative terms found in the literature.
Table 18 lists the terms used in ISO standards (2008) and their alternations. The objective oral exposure time was measured in seconds with a stopwatch by the experimenter. The data derived for the measurement was recorded by the experimenter on a form designed for the measurement (Appendix D.7).
Table 18. Alternative terms used in the test.
Table 17. The spread of the participants
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5.3.4 Procedure The test was held within four days in the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology. The test was held with one to two participants at the same time. Each test took approximately 60 minutes. In total, 15 test-sessions were conducted. Prior to the test, the checklist regarding research ethics from Human Research Ethics Committee of Delft University of Technology was discussed thoroughly with the supervision team. B e fo r e t h e t e s t , t h e p a r t i c i p a nt s r e c e i v e d information regarding all the ingredients involved and possible food allergies that the samples might cause. The consent form and list of ingredients can be viewed in Appendix D.8 and Appendix D.9.
The samples were categorized with their main i ng r e d i e nt s ( P o r k , C a r r o t , C ho c o l a t e ) , t he participants were served following the order: Pork, Carrot and Chocolate, in order to keep the flavor transition fluent (Savory- Neutral- Sweet). Randomization was done within the same food categories. All the sample orders used in the test can be viewed in Appendix D.11. Not randomizing the orders of the samples may cause carryover effect, Section 5.6.4 presents more elaborations.
Table 19. Scheme of the test.
To avoid incongruent interpretation on the textures terms used in the test, a sheet of instructions and definition of the texture characteristics were provided (Appendix D.10). The participants were asked to first consume the sample Set 1 and filled in the questionnaire. After finishing the questionnaire, the participants were asked to consume the Set 2 of the same sample, while consuming, the experimenter measured the oral exposure time simultaneously. The participant was instructed to indicate to the experimenter after his/her mouth was completely clear. Water was provided for the participants to rinse and refresh their mouthes after finishing each sample. Table 19 depicts the scheme of the test.
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5.3.5 Data Analysis Data Transformation, Missing Values and Outliers
Principle Component Analysis
Prior to the main analyses, descriptive analyses were conducted to examine the normality of the data and exclude outliers. Non-normal distribution was found in Objective oral exposure time, thus a new dataset of Objective oral exposure time with transformation in square root was included in the analyses, with skewness of 0.275 (SE= 0.165) and kurtosis of 0.659 (SE= 0.328).
There were 8 conscious and satiating determinants and 7 perceived texture characteristics measured in the test, to reduce the complexity of the results, two sets of Principle Component Analysis were conducted to reduce the number of variables.
There are three missed vales present in transformed Objective oral exposure time, owing to the fact that three participant refused to take sample 5-2 and 6-2 respectively. The missed values were replaced by means (M= 45.33). Owing to the fact that the presence of outliners have significant impact on the accuracy of the predictions in multiple linear regression. Hence the three outliers from the determinant Objective oral exposure time were excluded from from the dataset and replaced with mean scores (M= 45.33).
The determinants for cons cious snacking experiences were reduced from 7 to 3. The analysis produced three principle components, and can explain 74.28% of the total variances. The first principle component is related with Subjective oral exposure time, Efforts, Manipulations and Sound feedback, thus the means of the aforementioned determinants were calculated as the new variable named Perceived efforts-Time. The second principle component is associated with Fills up the mouth and Change shape in the mouth, thus the means of the aforementioned two detriments were calculated as the new variable named ChangesFills. At last, high association shown with the third principle component and Surprise. Objective oral exposure time is the only determinant for satiation, thus was kept as an individual variable. Figure 25 shows the principal components and the related determinants. The perceived texture characteristics were reduced into 4 variables; Dryness, Gumminess, Stickiness and Hardness. 76.5% of the total variances can be explained by the new principle components. The values of Dryness are derived from the means of Fluidity, Moistness and Crumbliness; while the
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Gumminess is composed of means calculated from Elasticity and Chewiness. At last, Stickiness and Hardness remained as two independent variables in the dataset. Figure 26 presents the principle components created for the perceived texture characteristics. Table 20 lists the new variables and correlated determinants. Table 20. List of the new variables
Component Plot in Rotated Space
Component Plot in Rotated Space
1.0
1.0
Elasticity
Shape Changes Fills up the mouth 0.5
Chewiness
Manipulation
0.5
Effort Subjective Oral Exposure Time
0.0
Crumbliness
0.0
Moistness
Sound Feeback
Fluidity
-0.5
-0.5
-1.0
-1.0 -1.0
-0.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
Component 1: 45.00% of Variance
Figure 25. The two principle components and the correlated determinants for consicou snacking
-1.0
-0.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
Component 1: 44.04% of Variance
Figure 26. The two principle components and the correlated texture characteristics
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Relations between the perceived texture characteristics and conscious and satiating eating experiences Multiple linear regression analyses with Entered method were conducted with IBM SPSS software to find out the relationship between conscious and satiating snacking experiences and the perceived food textures. Perceived efforts-Time, Changes-Fills, Surprise and Objective oral exposure time were treated as dependent variables, while the perceived texture characteristics were treated as independent variables for the model.
Relations between Objective and Subjective oral exposure time To investigate the relationship between the Objective and Subjective oral exposure time, a Pearson’s correlation analysis was conducted; Fi g u r e 2 7 s h o w s t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p s . T h u s t o investigate the relationship between the Objective and Subjective oral exposure time, a Pearson’s correlation analysis was conducted. Moreover, to learn more about their relationship, a follow-up linear regression analysis was run to discover the perceived textures predictors for Subjective oral exposure time. The perceived texture characteristics were treated as independent variables, while Subjective oral exposure time was treated as dependent variable in the analysis.
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Figure 27. The relationship between Objective and Subjective oral exposure time can be observed on the scatter plot
5.4 Result 5.4.1 Sample Characteristics & Assumption Testing To p r o v i de a n o v e r v i e w o f t he s a m p l e characteristics, Table 21 presents the mean scores and standard errors of all the samples regarding conscious and satiating snacking experiences and the perceived texture characteristics. The highest mean values are highlighted in pink, while the lowest mean values are highlighted in blue.
Five assumptions of the linear regression analysis was verified; linear relationships should be presented between the independent variables and the dependent variables, no multicollinearity should be shown on the data, homoscedasticity should be observed on the residuals, and little or no autocorrelation should be presented among the residuals. Firstly, linear relationships were shown in scatter plots between each independent variable and the dependent variable, the presence of linearity meets the first assumption of linear regression (Appendix D.12). Secondly, multicollinearity was not shown on all the data by examining the values for Tolerance and Variance Inflation Factor (Tolerance > .2, VIF < 5). Thirdly, homoscedasticity was also shown on all the scatterplots of the standard residuals. Fourthly, normally distributed errors were shown on the histograms of standardized residuals; and the points of standardized residuals on the normal P-P plots were close to the lines. At last, autocorrelations among the residuals were als o examine d. All the datas ets me et the assumption of independent errors at 0.05 significance level (Durbin Watson value > 1.65), which suggests that no autocorrelation was detected among the residuals. Appendix D.13. presents all the plots and the model summary for all the equations.
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Table 21. Means and Standard Errors of all the variables measured in the test
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5.4.2 Relations between the determinants and perceived texture characteristics The linear relationships between each determinant and the perceived texture characteristics were detected. All the analysis showed statistically significant results (P ≤ .05). Table 22 shows the coefficients between each determinant and the correlated texture characteristics at 0.05 significance level. Perceived efforts-Time is related with all the perceived texture characteristics (P≤.05); Gumminess shows the strongest relationship with Perceived Efforts among all (β= .420, P=.000). Changes-Fills is only correlated with Stickiness (β= .274, P=.000). Surprise is positively correlated with Gumminess (β= .220, P=.009), while negatively correlated with Hardness (β= -.392, P=.000). At last, a strong and positive relationship shown between Objective oral exposure time and Dryness (β= .474, P=.000).
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Table 22. Coefficients between the determinants for conscious and satiating snacking experiences and the corrrelated perceived textures at 0.05 significance level
5.4.3 Relations between Objective and Subjective oral exposure time Pearson’s Correlation analysis indicates that there is a positive relationship shown between the Objective and Subjective oral exposure time (r= .457, P= .000). Furthermore, the simple linear regression analysis shows that the Gumminess (β= .0.357, P=.000), Stickiness (β= .160, P= .000) and Hardness (β= .374, P=.000) are associated with Subjective oral exposure time, which is different from the predictor for Objective oral exposure time.
Table 23. Coefficients between Subjective and Objective oral exposure time and the corrrelated perceived textures at 0.05 significance level
Ta ble 23 pre s ents the co e fficie nts b etwe en Subjective and Objective oral exposure time and the correlated perceived texture characteristics at 0.05 significance level.
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5.5 Discussion 5.5.1 Introduction
5.5.2 Conscious Snacking
This study demonstrates the relations between the perceived texture characteristics and conscious and satiating snacking experiences. Perceived efforts-Time, Changes-Fills and Surprise are the determinants for conscious snacking experiences, while Objective oral exposure time is the key indicator for satiation. The following paragraphs discuss the relations between the perceived texture characteristics and conscious snacking (5.5.2), satiation (5.5.3), relationships between Subjective and Objective oral exposure time (5.5.4), moreover comparisons with instrumental texture attributes were also elaborated in section 5.5.5 as practical applications for the food industry.
Thre e p erceive d texture characteristics are discovered to be strongly associated with conscious snacking; namely Gumminess, Hardness and Stickiness. Firstly, Gumminess has impact on conscious snacking by increasing the level of Perceived Efforts and Time, and increasing the degree of Surprise. The findings echo with some existing studies. By increase the degree of Gumminess, more lower-jaw (Ishihara et al., 2011) and tongue activities (Pascua, Koรง & Foegeding, 2013) can be triggered, hence leads to the increase of Perceived Effort and Time. Moreover, increasing Gumminess can also elicit the feeling of Surprise by creating incongruences (Ludden, Schifferstein & Hekkert, 2009) between the phase of observation and oral processes. Secondly, the feeling of Surprise can be also triggered by the decreased of Hardness; which indicates that when the food has lower degree of Hardness, more incongruences occur. At last, Stickiness plays the significant role in conscious snacking by eliciting the feeling of shape changes and full mouth in the ending stage of mastication phase (Rosenthal & Share, 2014).
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The relevance of food textures in the cognitive mechanisms is addressed by many studies in the fields of physiology and neuroscience (Rolls, 2012; Berthoud, 2007; Berridge, 1996); there is no existing study further investigate the association between the perceived texture characteristics and conscious eating. The findings of this study shed light on current research fields of food textures and consciousness, as well as unveil new research opportunities for the future.
5.5.3 Satiation As mentioned in Chapter 1, prolonging objective oral exposure time leads to higher degree of satiation. The result of this study shows that Dryness is positively related to Objective oral exposure time. The findings are congruent with many existing studies (Pascua, Koรง and Foegeding, 2013; de Graaf, 2012). By increasing the degree of Dryness, the difficulty of breaking down the food structures increases (Wilkinson, Dijksterhuis, & Minekus, 2000); while the degree of lubrication decreases (Rosenthal and Share, 2014), hence leads to the longer oral exposure time.
5.5.4 Objective and Subjective oral exposure time
5.5.5 Comparisons with instrumental studies
An intriguing relationship was also discovered between Objective and subjective oral exposure time. Even though Objective and Subjective oral exposure time are correlated, distinct perceived texture characteristics are associated with these two determinants. Dryness is the key indicator to control Objective oral exposure time; while Hardness is the most relevant texture attribute to influence Subjective oral exposure time.
T he p e r c e i v e d t ex t u r e c ha r a c t e r i s t i c s w e r e i nv e s t i g at e d i n t h i s s t u d y . C o ns i de r i ng t he target audiences of the guidelines work for the food industry. It is crucial to relate the findings with instrumental measurement for practical applications.
To discover the underlying reasons for this incongruences, more investigation should be done. By understanding the relationship between Objective and Subjective oral exposure time, new opportunities to control calories intake can be unfolded. Moreover, it is important to address that different sets of samples were utilized when measuring the two variables, thus the discovered relationship should be merely considered as indications, further investigation should be conducted to learn the associations. Section 5.6.2 provides more elaborations.
There are many studies (De Lavergne et al., 2015; Rahman & Al-Farsi, 2005; Meullenet et al., 1997) discuss the relationships between perceived textures and instrumental texture attributes. However, the perceived texture characteristics investigated in this study are not fully explained by the existing studies. For instance, it is known that the perceived Stickiness is positively correlated with instrumental adhesiveness (De Lavergne et al., 2015), and perceived Hardness is related with instrumental Hardness (De Lavergne et al., 2015); whereas there is no comparison made with perceived Gumminess and perceived Dryness. Owing to limitation of time, no instrumental studies were conducted to the food samples, further investigation should be done to compare instrumental textures with the perceived texture characteristics used in this study.
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5.6 Test Limitations & Recommendations Owing to the time limitation of the project, the test was conducted in a relatively short time period. Thus there are some limitations that should be clarified, recommendations are also made for the future studies.
5.6.1 Food Samples Evaluation A ft e r t w o s e qu e nt i a l p a r t s o f e v a l u at i o n , 8 representable samples were selected to be assessed in the main study; however, there are some limitation of the evaluation process that need to be elaborated. Firstly, the preliminary evaluation was only conducted by the designer individually. The p a r a me t e r s u s e d t o e l i m i na t e s a m p l e s a r e regarding the perception of textures, thus it is rather subjective if the evaluation was only conducted by one person. Secondly, the food sample selection was based on conscious and satiating determinants, so the selected food samples were perceived differently regarding conscious and satiating snacking experiences. However, there is incoherent amount in the three types of foods (Chocolate = 4, Carrots =2, Pork =2). It can be argued that the aim of the study is to discover the relationship between conscious and satiating snacking experiences and perceived textures, thus selecting food samples that bring distinct snacking experiences should be prioritized. Whereas another goal of the project is to create guidelines that can be applied to manipulate food textures of the selected three types of foods. Thus finding out the balance
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5.6.2 Sample Preparation between variances in snacking experiences and in food types is ideal. The reason that cause this imbalance during sample evaluation is different for carrot and pork. For carrots, most of the prototypes create similar snacking experiences, as most of the carrot samples were presented in the same cluster in K-Means cluster analysis. For pork, more practical consideration was the causation. A considerable amount of pork prototypes should be eaten warm right after cooking, the textures change easily after being cold or reheated. Owing to the fact that it is not manageable to prepare the pork samples before each test, this characteristics of pork limited the range of selection. One practical way to improve this imbalance is to create more prototypes of Carrots and Pork during prototyping phase, in order to seek for more possible candidates regarding the variety of snacking experiences and practicality.
For the concern of food safety, the samples tested in the main evaluation were made in different batches, thus even though the cooking conditions were controlled, subtle differences in tastes, textures and appearances among different batches of the samples are expected. It is unknown whether this subtle differences influenced the result, but it should be kept in mind while reading this report. Moreover, the relationships between Objective oral exposure time and Subjective oral exposure time were compared. However, as mentioned in 5.5.4, different sample sets were utilized to measure Objective and Subjective oral exposure time; Objective oral exposure time was measured with the sample with identical weight, whereas Subjective oral exposure time was measured with the sample with identical volume. Therefore even though the results indicate the associations, further investigation should be conducted to derive more understandings and make accurate predictions. Weight is often a fixed factor when measuring oral exposure time, thus to compare these two variables, the weight of the stimuli should be identical.
5.6.3 The Participants
5.6.4 Test Operationalization
The sample size is considered small (N=28) in the test. Thus it is important to note that the predictions made by the analysis can only be referred to as indications of the relationship b e t w e e n t he p r e d i c t o r s a nd t he de p e nde nt variables. Making an accurate prediction with the result is not recommendable.
The setup of the test can be improved in two facets; the uniformity of testing environment and occasions, and to randomize orders of the food samples. Firstly, owing to time limitation, two participants were presented simultaneously in most of the testing sessions (N= 13), whereas there were two sessions held with only one participant presented. A study conducted by Hetherington, Anderson, Norton and Newson (2006) demonstrate eating in the presence of others has impact on the total energy intake, and the total time duration for consumptions. Even though the aforementioned two factors do not directly link to the increase of oral exposure time for consuming individual food sample, but the study shows the possibility of the incongruences between the situation of eating individually and eating in the presence of others.
At last, it is ideal that the food samples presented should be randomized. However, in order to keep the flavor transition fluent (Savory- NeutralSweet), the food samples were only randomized within the same types of foods (see section 5.3.4), thus the outcome could be biased for having the carryover effect. The carryover effect should be prevented by randomizing all the tested samples.
Secondly, in total, 15 sessions were held in four days. The sessions spread from morning (9:45) to afternoon (17:30). The degree of hunger is an effective factor for oral exposure time. The participants received information regarding on the amount the food served in the test, and were suggested not to be too hungry or full before the test. However, it is difficult to reach the equal body conditions for all the participants while holding the tests in different eating occasions.
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6
Guidelines
for food designers
6.1 Guidelines for food designers A set of digital guidelines were created by combing the result from the main study and know-hows of textures manipulations from Designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Toolbox. Figure 28 illustrates the basic structures of the guidelines. The guidelines can be view via following link or QR code:
Owing to the fact that the target audiences of the guidelines are designers working in the food industry, the guidelines are designed to be interactive and involved more visual information to communicate the result efficiently.
https://goo.gl/4x4gN2
Home page Click Create Mouthfeel
Click Conscious & Satiating Snacking Experinece
Create Mouthfeel
Conscious & Satiating Snacking Experience
Drag the sliders for the perceived textures
Drag the slider for the perceived textures
Display prototypes for the setted mouthfeel
Correlations with the determinant
Click prototype
Prototypes for the selected textures parameters Click prototype
Recipes & More information Click BLOG
Click BACK
Click MENU
Menu links to the other determinants
Click LEARN MORE
Click the intended determinant
More information for implementations
The selected determinant
Click BACK
Click BACK
Designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Toolbox blog
Figure 28. The structure of the guidelines
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Two parts are involved in the guidelines; Conscious and Satiating Snacking Experiences, and Create Mouthfeel. The part Conscious and Satiating Snacking Experiences communicates the relationships between the determinants for conscious and satiating snacking experiences and perceived texture characteristics. The relationships are presented with the design of the sliders; users can discover the associations by dragging the sliders of the perceived texture characteristics. While dragging each of the perceived texture characteristics, the slider of the determinant moves according to their coefficients. For instance, Figure 29 shows the relationship of the determinant “Objective Oral Exposure Time” and “Dryness.”
Figure 29. The interactive interface of presenting the correlations
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Moreover, users can access more information by clicking the button “Learn more.” More information re garding the extensive explanation of the determinants as well as the perceived texture characteristics are displayed via the “Learn more” function.
Figure 30. More information can be viewed by clikcing the "Learn More" button.
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Create Mouthfeel demonstrates the know-hows of creating various textures. Users can explore different prototypes possibilities of the intended mouthfeel by dragging the sliders (Figure 31). More information to the recipes is displayed upon clicking the photos of the prototypes (Figure 32).
The guidelines can communicate the result efficiently and intuitively with its visualized presentation, as well as serve as a powerful tool to inspire and assist users to work on creating food textures.
Figure 31. Interface of "Create Mouthfeel".
Figure 32. More information and recipes can be viewed by clicking pictures of the prototypes
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6.2 Recommendations The current guidelines design is done with the prototyping software (Axure RP 8) in order to demonstrate the experiences of use efficiently, hence, there are some recommendations regarding the contents and the design of the guidelines for future development. Firstly, regarding the contents of the guidelines, m o r e r e c i p e s a n d fo o d i n g r e d i e nt s c a n b e incorporated. As mentioned and discussed in section 5.6.1, more carrot and pork prototypes could be made to offer more variety in terms of both conscious and satiating snacking experiences and perceived food textures. Moreover, the guidelines merely display the recipes from the three selected ingredients, to enrich the contents and provide more possibilities, more recipes regarding other ingredients can be added in the future.
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Additionally, some suggestions regarding the instrumental measurement of the food textures can be addressed in the guidelines. The displayed information in the guidelines focuses on the perceived textures. As discussed in section 5.5.5, incorporating information regarding instrumental texture characteristics can make the guidelines more applicable for the fo o d industry. It is desirable to establish cooperations with one reliable research institute to carry on single type of instrumental measurement, for instance Texture Profile Analysis (TPA), to provide more coherent suggestions.
S o m e r e c o m m e n da t i o n s c a n a l s o b e m a de regarding the design of the guidelines. The target users of the guidelines are the designers working in or for the food industry. To communicate the result effectively to the target users, more visualized information were displayed. However, no usability tests or research on the target users were conducted. For the future implementation and development, it is crucial to involved the users in the design processes to advance the design.
7
Reflection
7.1 Introduction This project discovered the relationships between food textures and conscious and satiating snacking experiences. The designer of this project was trained and worked as an industrial designer for 7 years in Taiwan, and as a Design for Interaction student for the past two years in the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology. Although being a designer for many years, carrying out a research project in the perspective of a designer was challenging and a whole new experience. Many new things and knowledge were learned along the way of this project. This chapter reflects on the outcomes of the project (Section 7.2), as well as on the research processes and the applied methods (Section 7.3).
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7.2 The outcomes of the project The goal of this project was defined as: to create a set of guidelines that help designers in the food industry to create conscious and satiating snacking experiences, by unfolding the relationships between the perceived food textures and conscious and satiating snacking experiences, as well as methods for manipulating food textures. The goal was successfully achieved in this project. Firstly, the relationships between the perceived fo o d t ex t u r e s a n d c o n s c i o u s a n d s a t i a t i n g snacking experiences were addressed in the main study (Chapter 5); a set of digital and interactive guidelines were designed to convey the findings in a more intuitive way. As discussed in Chapter 5.6, owing to the fact that there are still many details can be improved in the main study, so the findings cannot make accurate predictions but merely demonstrate possible correlations. On the other hand, considering there is less studies research on the relationships between conscious eating and food textures, the findings shed lights on the current sensory studies by providing more understandings on how food textures contribute to conscious eating. Additionally, this project also unveils more design opportunities regarding how food textures shape our eating experiences.
Secondly, multiple ways of manipulating food textures were also explored in a designer â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perspective and presented in the guidelines. Even though there are still a lot of rooms for improvement, for instance more pork and carrots prototypes could have been created as discussed in Chapter 5.6.1, but the presented prototyping examples in the guidelines can offer an insightful starting points for other designers in the food industry.
7.3 Research Processes and Methods Owing to the complexity of this project, different research methods were applied. The topic of food textures was explored by reviewing existing literature and a 4 weeks prototyping phase. On the other hand, a set of qualitative research was conducted on conscious snacking. The insights derived from the two topics were then combined in the main study. Qualitative Research on Conscious Snacking In the processes of qualitative research, the designer designed three sessions to investigate conscious snacking. To discover the underlying determinants for conscious snacking, these sessions were designed in the ways without revealing the research topic to the participants. As a result, fruitful insights regarding conscious snacking were derived from the sessions and the follow-up inter views. The design and operationalizations of the sessions were inspired and derived from the two-years training from the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. The design of these sessions demonstrate possible ways to conduct research on the similar topics in the future.
Designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Toolbox A four weeks prototyping phase was carried out to explore possible ways to manipulate food textures. As creating food textures is traditionally a work belonged to chefs or food scientists, it was quite difficult to be involved in this process owing to lack of the related knowledge, facilities and techniques. However, the designer regarded food as a way to intervene peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eating experiences; and strived to contribute to this process with the tryand-errors mindsets and interactive prototyping methods derived within the two-years training in Delft University of Technology. The outcomes of this phase successfully demonstrate how foodstuff can be manipulated as materials and tools in the design processes.
Main Study The quantitative approach was applied in the main study. The designer was not familiar with the quantitative research methods, however the research and analyses were successfully conducte d thanks to the supp orts from the supervision team. The most important takeaway from this phase is to learn how think in the perspective of researchers. As this project is a research project, the different mindsets between designers and researchers were strongly acknowledged along the processes. This experience helps the designer to cooperate and contribute her expertise to other research and design projects in the future.
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Rosenthal, A. J., & Share, C. (2014). Temporal Dominance of Sensations of peanuts and peanut products in relation to Hutchings and Lillford’s “breakdown path”. Food Quality and Preference, 32, 311-316.
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117
Glossary
118
Electromyography (EMG)
“Electromyography is used to measure the activity of the muscles used in mastication.” (Wilkinson, Dijksterhuis & Minekus, 2000)
Free Choice Profiling (FCP)
Free Choice Profiling enables panelists to describe the perceived textures based on the vocabularies created by themselves. Free Choice Profiling assumes that all the panelists do not differ in their perceptions, but the way they describe them. (Guàrdia et al., 2010)
The ISO standard
The ISO standard referred in this report is ISO 5492:2008, which is a vocabulary developed by the International Standard Organization for sensory analysis.
Molecular Gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy is a modern cooking method since it first named by Kurti and This in 1988 (Vega & Ubbink, 2008) with the development of chemistry and cooking e q u i p m e nt s . T h e w a y t h a t m o l e c u l a r gastronomy combines food additives such as hydrocolloids, and applying modern kitchen equipments, for instance, nitrogen cream whipper, is insightful for creating textures variations.
Oral Exposure Time
O r a l E x p o s u r e Ti me r e fe r s t o t he o r a l processing time of food.
Progressive Profiling
In progressive profiling, a small set of attributes is rated by a sensory panel multiple times during the processing of food in the mouth. (Wilkinson, Dijksterhuis & Minekus, 2000)
Q u a nt i t at i v e D e s c r i p t i v e Analysis (QDA)
Quantitative Descriptive Analysis enables the trained panelist to express their perceptions of a food; a complete descriptive sensory profile of a food, containing aroma, textures and tastes can be depicted. (De Lavergne et al., 2015)
Satiation
“The process that leads the the termination of eating, which may be accompanied by a feeling of satisfaction. It is different from Satiety, The feeling of fullness that persists after eating, potentially suppressing further energy intake until hunger returns.” (Benelam,2009)
Te m p o r a l D o m i n a n c e o f Sensations (TDS)
Temporal Dominance of Sensations is a dynamic sensory measurement focuses on defining the most “dominant” sensation at different time points during consumptions. (De Lavergne et al., 2015)
Texture Profile Analysis (TPA)
Texture Profile Analysis is the most common i n s t r u m e nt a l i m i t a t i v e m e a s u r e m e nt . I n s t r u m e nt a l t ex t u r e s p r o f i l e c a n b e developed by compressing the food sample on a TPA analyzer or Instron Universal Testing Machine. (Huang, Kennedy, Li, Xu & Xie, 2007; Wilkinson, Dijksterhuis & Minekus, 2000)
Time Intensive Analysis (TI)
Time–intensity (TI) methods enables panelists to assess their perceived sensations over time. (Lawless & Heymann, 2010)
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Appendix
Appendix A.
122
A.1. Classification of snacks Based on the definition of snacks, a broad range of foods are involved. It is crucial to make a clear classification to communicate. To classify snacks, two sources of information was referred; a market report about global snacks market (The Nielsen Company, 2014) and existing food products in The Netherlands. The market report by The Nielsen Company (2014) provides overviews of the current snack markets in different continents or regions, the classification of different types of snacks was made based on the report. Adjustments were made for the Dutch market by reviewing existing snack products from two retailers; Jumbo and Albert Heijn.
123
A.2. List of snacks products on the market
124
Name
Supplier
Price
Ingredients
Saturated Fat/ 100g Fat/ 100g
Calories/ 100g
Weight/ pack
Chips 01. Lays Natural
PepsiCo
1.29
2.7g/ 100g 34g/ 100g
541 kcal
225g 7-8 servings
02. Lays Cheese onion
PepsiCo
1.29
2.6g/ 100g 32g/ 100g
533 kcal
225g 7-8 servings
03. AH Chips natural
Albert Heijn
0.85
3g/ 100g 35g/ 100g
555 kcal
200g 8 servings
04. AH Organic Natural Chips
Albert Heijn
1.45
3g/ 100g 32g/ 100g
500 kcal
125g 5 servings
05. Lays Natural Light
PepsiCo
1.05
2.2g/ 100g 22g/ 100g
490 kcal
170g 5-6 servings
06. Lays Oven roasted peppers
PepsiCo
1.29
1.1g/ 100g 9.4g/ 100g
416 kcal
165g 5-6 servings
07. AH Ribbel Chips sea salt 35% less fat
Albert Heijn
1.19
2g/ 100g 22g/ 100g
470 kcal
150g 6 servings
1.75
3.5g/ 100g 30.1g/ 100g
513 kcal
150g 6 servings
1.17
2.1g/ 100g 26g/ 100g
505 kcal
185g 6-7 servings
(PepsiCo)
1.25
1.9g/ 100g 24g/ 100g
497 kcal
205g, 6-7 servings
Kellogg’s
1.99
3.4/ 100g 33g/ 100g
516 kcal
165g 5 servings
12. AH Organic Banana Chips
Albert Heijn
2.99
31g/ 100g 34g/ 100g
545 kcal
300g 12 servings
13. Crispy Crunch me! Apple Crisps
Crispy Natural
0.99
0.1g/ 100g 0.4g/ 100g
364 kcal
15g
14. Lucy Mango slices
Taste Specialist
5.29
0.5g/. 100g 0.9g/ 100g
320 kcal
250g
08. Kettle Chips sea salt 09. Doritos Pure Paprika 10. Doritos Natural 11. Pringles Original
Kettle Food
(Snyder’s-Lance)
Frito-Lay (PepsiCo)
Frito-Lay
68% banana, 25% coconut oil, cane sugar, honey
Mango, gluten, wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelled, kamut, peanuts, tree nuts and sesame
Name
Supplier
Price
Ingredients
Saturated Fat/ 100g Fat/ 100g
Calories/ 100g
Weight/ pack
Extruded Snacks 01. Cheetos Chipito cheese
PepsiCo
1.09
1.9g/ 100g 23g/ 100g
491 kcal
110g 3-4 servings
02. Cheetos Ringlings onion
PepsiCo
1.29
2.1g/ 100g 29g/ 100g
525 kcal
125g 4-5 servings
03. Lays Bugles Nacho Cheese Flavor
PepsiCo
1.21
4g/ 100g 32g/ 100g
540 kcal
115g 3-4 servings
04. Lays Paprika Wokkels
PepsiCo
1.3
1.6g/ 100g 19g/ 100g
460 kcal
115g 3-4 servings
Intersnack
1.12
2.5g/ 100g 28.6g/ 100g
506 kcal
125g 4-5 servings
01. LU Mini Crackers olive oil and oregano
1.39
3.9g/ 100g 13.5g/ 100g
435 kcal
250g 8 servings
02. LU mini crackers Natrual
1.39
5.7g/ 100g 12.5 g/ 100g
435 kcal
250g 8 servings
Jos Poell
1.69
6.6g/ 100g 13.4/ 100g
460 kcal
100g
Continental Bakeries
1.19
10.2g/ 100g 19.5g/ 100g
470 kcal
200g
05. Jos Poell toasts olive
Jos Poell
1.49
2.3g/ 100g 16.9g/ 100g
465 kcal
120g
06. Spicy Cracker Mix
Take One
0.95
13.6g/ 100g 33.1g/ 100g
552 kcal
125g 4-5 servings
07. Jumbo Soya Rice Crackers
Jumbo
1.83
4.1g/ 100g 9.2g/ 100g
429 kcal
175g
05. Chio Heart Breakers
Crackers
03. Jos Poell Flat bread greek olive and feta 04. Haust Party Extra Original
Rice 78.9%, soy beans 11.8%, palm oil and salt
Name
Supplier
Price
Ingredients
Saturated Fat/ 100g Fat/ 100g
Calories/ 100g
Weight/ pack
Nuts 01. AH Crispy salted peanuts
Albert Heijn
1.39
8g/ 100g 49g/ 100g
615 kcal
370g
02. AH Crunchy peanuts unsalted
Albert Heijn
0.88
8g/ 100g 50g/ 100g
620 kcal
235g
03. AH unsalted walnuts
Albert Heijn
2.69
8.5g/ 100g 66g/ 100g
700 kcal
110g
PepsiCo
1.85
5.3g/ 100g 39g/ 100g
572 kcal
300g
05. Chio Borrel bites paprika sweet chili
Intersnack
1.65
5.6g/ 100g 37.4g/ 100g
549 kcal
240g
06. AH Varied blend salted nuts
Albert Heijn
3.39
7.5g/ 100g 56g/ 100g
650 kcal
150g
07. AH Pumpkin seeds
Albert Heijn
1.89
Pumpkin seeds
8.5g/ 100g 49g/ 100g
605 kcal
100g
08. Nutcase Chocolate Peanuts
Snack Connection
0.95
49% peanuts, 48% milk chocolate, rapeseed oil, thickener: E414, sugar, glucose syrup, brightener: E904
12.5g/ 100g 39g/ 100g
566 kcal
200g
01. Jack Link's Meat Snacks Beef Jerky
Jack Linkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Snack LSI
1.9
2g/ 100g 2.5g/ 100g
253 kcal
25g
02. Bell Pepper Beef Jerky 25g
Bell Deutschland
1.99
1.4g/ 100g 3g/ 100g
241 kcal
25g
Bolletje BV
0.73
0.6g/ 100g 2.8g/ 100g
390 kcal
165g
van Strien
2.19
27.1g/ 100g 41.4g/ 100g
568 kcal
80g
04. Duyvis
Borrenlnootijes Provencale
Walnuts
Jerky
Original 25g
Others 01. Bolletje Salt Pepsels
Name
Supplier
Price
Ingredients
Saturated Fat/ 100g Fat/ 100g
Calories/ 100g
Weight/ pack
Flour Confectionary : Cakes & Pastry, Biscuits 01. Jumbo Egg Biscuits
02. Mini Pink Cakes
05. AH Donuts (fresh)
Jumbo
0.87
1.2g/ 100g 3.8g/ 100g
329 kcal
300g
Albert Heijn
0.95
8g/ 100g 19g/ 100g
420 kcal
210g
Albert Heijn
2.99
5.4g/ 100g 26.7g/ 100g
433 kcal
N/A
Lotus Bakeries
1.29
8.8g/ 100g 19g/ 100g
484 kcal
250g
Albert Heijn
2.2
12g/ 100g 25.6g/ 100g
442 kcal
51g x4
1.27
9.8g/ 100g 20g/ 100g
480 kcal
154 g
(Pladis)
1.4
10.1g/ 100g 21.3g/ 100g
481 kcal
400g
Jumbo
1.64
14g/ 100g 21g/ 100g
461 kcal
470g
Jumbo
1.19
12.6g/ 100g 26g/ 100g
469 kcal
550g
Helwa Wafelbakkerij
0.49
26g/ 100g 39g/ 100g
555 kcal
150g
1.68
14g/ 100g 26g/ 100g
509 kcal
184g
(Pladis)
1.09
15.3g/ 100g 28.8g/ 100g
530 kcal
200g
Continental Bakeries
1.02
11.9g/ 100g 20.3g/ 100g
485 kcal
25 g x12
06. Original Oreo Cookies 07. Verkade Digestive Original
09. Jumbo Luikse wafel 10. Helwa Penny Wafers
Verkade
11. LU Time Out Chocolate biscuits 12. Verkade Nobo Shortbread Original 13. Brinky Fourré Choc Vanilla sandwich biscuits
Verkade
Name
Supplier
Saturated Fat/ 100g Fat/ 100g
Calories/ 100g
1.31
1.5g/ 100g 4.2g/ 100g
404 kcal
198g
1.19
1.9g/100g 1.9g/ 100g
390 kcal
37.5g/ scroll
0.1g/ 100g < 0.5g/ 100g
343 kcal
250g
1.5g/ 100g 3g/ 100g
361 kcal
115g
Price
Ingredients
Weight/ pack
Sugar Confectionary: Candies
01. Skittles
Wrigley Company (division of Mars Inc.)
Perfetti Van Melle
(for 5)
Haribo
1.28
Perfetti Van Melle
1.19
Astra Sweets
0.84
HFCS, sugar, water, gelatin, anti-caking agent: cornstarch, aroma, colorings
0g
324 kcal
210g
King / Cloetta
1.59
Sugar, gelling agent, gelatin, peppermint oil, menthol
0g
396 kcal
N/A
Jumbo
1.23
0g
376 kcal
200g
08. Chupa Chups Lollipops
Perfetti Van Melle
1.13
0.2g/ 100g 0.3g/ 100g
388 kcal
192 g (16 pieces)
09. Van Melle Drop Toffees with Liquorice
Perfetti Van Melle
0.99
6.6g/ 100g 6.6g/ 100g
388 kcal
250g
Pez International
1.13
1.6g/ 100g 1.6g/ 100g
400 kcal
8 x 8.5 g
Lonka
1.29
6.7g/ 100g 9.4g/ 100g
380 kcal
200g
12. Wertherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Original Caramel & Cream
August Storck
1.19
5.7g/ 100g 8.5g/ 100g
406 kcal
150g
13. Kindlyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sweet Memories raspberries
Van Vilet The Candy Company
1.79
0.1g/ 100g 0.1g/ 100g
390 kcal
200g
14. de Bron Butter Toffees sugar free
Van Vilet The Candy Company
1.39
5.3g/ 100g 9.7g/ 100g
298 kcal
70g
02. Mentos mint 03. Haribo gold bears 04. Look-O-Look Strawberry laces
06. King Peppermint Original 07. Jumbo sweet Jelly beans
10. Pez Fruit Mix
Corn Syrup, sugar, gelatin, dextrose, fruit juice from concentrate, acid, fruit and plant concentrates, aroma, elderberry extract, glazing agents
Corn Syrup, sugar, fully hardened coconut fat, liquorice root extract (2.5%), salmiakzout, gelatin, wetting agent, dye, gelling agent, dextrin, aromas
Sugar, glucose syrup, caramel (24%), water, vegetable fat, skimmed milk powder, milk protein, salt, honey
Sugar, glucose syrup, food acid, aroma, dye (E120)
Name
Supplier
Price
Ingredients
Saturated Fat/ 100g Fat/ 100g
Calories/ 100g
0g
369 kcal
N/A
Weight/ pack
Sugar Confectionary: Candies (Continued) 15. Kindly’s Cinnamon Sticks
Van Vilet The Candy Company
1.49
Lonka
1.36
16g/ 100g 18g/ 100g
451 kcal
200g
Sugar, glucose syrup, dark brown sugar, cinnamon powder, cinnamon oil
Sugar Confectionary: Gums 01. Mentos Gum Aqua Kiss
Perfetti Van Melle
2.05
0.5g/ 100g 0.5g/ 100g
141 kcal
2 x 26g
02. Smart Spearmint Gum Xylito
Hamlet NV
0.44
0g
143 kcal
39.6g
03. Mentos Gum White sweet mint sugar free
Perfetti Van Melle
2.59
0g
171 kcal
105g
04. Mentos Gum Pure Fresh Mint sugar free
Perfetti Van Melle
2.92
Sweeteners, gum, stabilizer, aromas, starch, maltodextrin, emulsifying agents, thickening agents, Green tea extract (0.1%), coco oil, brightening agent, antioxidant, dye
0g
181 kcal
100g
Lindt & Sprüngli SAS
1.68
Cocoa mass, fat cocoa, cocoa butter, Brown sugar, natural, Bourbon vanilla pod
28g/ 100g 46g/ 100g
530 kcal
100g
Nestlé
1.78
15.6g/ 100g 27.9g/ 100g
523 kcal
250g
Tony’s Chocolonely
2.58
19.4g/ 100g 32g/ 100g
536 kcal
180g
04. Snickers
Mars, Inc.
1.65
8.3g/ 100g 22.8g/ 100g
483 kcal
5 x 50g
05. Mars
Mars, Inc.
1.74
8.3g/ 100g 16.6g/ 100g
449 kcal
5 x 45g
06. Twix
Mars, Inc.
1.63
13.8g/ 100g 23.9g/ 100g
494 kcal
5 x 50g
Chocolate 01. Lindt Excellence
85% Cocoa 100g Noir Puissant
02. Nestle KitKat mini 03. Tony’s Chocolonely Salt Milk Caramel
Name
Supplier
Saturated Fat/ 100g Fat/ 100g
Calories/ 100g
0.93
17g/ 100g 28g/ 100g
530 kcal
100g
Price
Ingredients
Weight/ pack
Chocolate (Continued) 07. Milka Witte Chocolate Bar 08. Maltesers Maxipack
Mars, Inc.
2.81
15.2g/ 100g 24.3g/ 100g
500 kcal
300g
09. M&M’s Peanut
Mars, Inc.
1.87
10.4g/ 100g 25.6g/ 100g
512 kcal
200g
10. Nestlé Bros Mini
Nestlé
1.78
20g/ 100g 34.4g/ 100g
554 kcal
190g
11. M&M’s Chocolate
Mars, Inc.
1.87
10.8g/ 100g 17.6g/ 100g
468 kcal
200g
12. Kinder Bueno Milk and Hazelnut, 10 pcs
Ferrero
2.43
17.3g/ 100g 37.3g/ 100g
572 kcal
215 g (21.5/ piece)
13. Ferrero Rocher 16 pcs
Ferrero
3.56
14.1g/ 100g 42.7g/ 100g
603 kcal
200g
2.85
17g/ 100g 31g/ 100g
529 kcal
2 x 90g
Marge Food & Nonfood BV
3.49
31.3g/ 100g 39.8g/ 100g
576 kcal
160g
Movers & Shakers
1.79
2.9g/ 100g 10.3g/ 100g
372 kcal
68g
ROO Brands
1.25
2.8g/ 100g 15g/ 100g
385 kcal
30g
14. Côte d'Or Brut Pure Orange & Almond Dark Chocolate Bar
Energy Bars 01. Cliff Bar White Chocolate Macadamia nuts 02. Roo’Bar Hemp-chia
Dates, almonds, hennepprotëine (18%), chia seed (5%), and Organic Raw
A.3. Calories contens of existing snacks products
132
133
Appendix B.
134
B.1. Materials used in Pilot Study Ideation Topic in Pilot Study
Worksheets used in Pilot Study
135
B.2. Interveiw Scripts
136
B.3. Discussion Topics in Study I
137
B.4. All the insights from Statement Card Analysis 1. Residues Residues of snacks appear in the phase of handling and oral processes. People tend to be more conscious when the snacks created residues. During the handling process, residues can be crumbs, smells on and the sticky feelings on the fingers, Shahrokh mentioned Haribo Gummy Bears stick on his fingers while eating. In the oral processes, the residues can be the mouth coating after swallowing, or the residual feelings such as thirsty; Alli was conscious after eating Chio Heart Breakers, because he was thirsty. “I liked it, but i didn’t like the smell of the gummy bears. The gummy bears afterwards…on my hands…” Shahrokh “that I also notice. Because I thought I needed water, after I ate that I thought I need water, I am a bit thirsty.” - Alli 2. Combination of Textures increase the conscious level When a snack contains more than one textures, people are more conscious while eating. Pietro had strong impression about LU Scholiertje Biscuits Pure Chocolate, because it is the combination of chocolate and biscuits. Similar comments provided by Alev, she was impressed by the texture combination of Verkade Digestive Bites Dubbel Choco. “…because it’s both crunchy, and soft, so the chocolate is soft and sweet, and the cookie is
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crunchy, so it’s kind of chewy in, so it’s kind of two different flavors in one, instead of just one.” - Pietro “But compare with chocolate bar, I like chocolate balls more, because it has some kind of textures in it. I want to chew it more.” - Alev 3. Comparing Flavors Comparing different flavors can make people more conscious. Lee explained the reason that Haribo Gummy Bear makes her conscious is because she could make comparison between different flavors. While comparing, more attention was drawn to the eating activity in the mouth. “Diversity, like different flavors (jelly bears)…I can… compare to others.” -Lee 4. Appearance of snacks Appearance of snacks does influence people’s food choices, Lei explained the reason that he ate Chio Heart Breaker is owing to its unique shape; and Lee put color as the first priority when choosing snacks. Snacks with unique or attractive shapes or color can be impressive to people, however, it does not mean that people are more conscious while snacking. Because people mainly get the impression of appearance during obser vation phase, people’s conscious level during oral processes is not yet verified. “(Talking about Chio Heart Breaker) You can just make it as regular shape, but it was made into
this…makes me want to try.” - Lei “First color, second texture, you can keep it longer in your mouth, and …diversity.” - Lee 5. Consequences of snacking When making food choices, people envision the consequences of snacking and make decision based on that assumption. Lu explained the reason that he did not eat chips is that he dislike the sticky residues and thought that he can not brush his teeth right away. For Lee, she thought the hard candy “cuts her tongue,” so she would not have chosen to eat Rademaker Hopjes Koffie. However, consequences of snacking has more impact on food choices, but not the level of conscious. “And chips tend to stick to the teeth after you finish, I don’t like it, and because I can’t brush my teeth right away now.” -Lu “If I knew that it is this kind of candy I wouldn’t eat it, I thought it is caramel…I don’t like it…It cuts my tongue.” - Lee 6. Individual Differences Individual differences play roles in people’s food choices and level of conscious. There are three subcategories under individual differences; past experiences, personal preferences and others. For the past experiences, people tend to have stronger impression if the snacks are new for them. “the impression…yes it’s because of the taste,
because I’ve never tried that one, for the potato chips, I’ve already tried it.” - Sakiinah Moreover, if people have special connections with the snacks, they tend to focus more on the snacks while eating. Both Pietro and Shahrokh indicated that the reasons of being conscious while eating certain snacks is owing to the memories of their childhood. “Well I love the cookies with the chocolate, because those remind me when I was young, because I used to eat them,..” - Pietro “I love gummy bears! I really… I have very strong connections to my childhood with that, and I eat it still…enjoying, I mean…” - Shahrokh
At last, people’s food choice was influenced by other personal factors, such as calories concern and religion. Sakiinah was on a diet because of her religion belief, so before eating snacks, she was conscious about the ingredients. And G Young wanted to control her calories intake, so she was conscious on selecting the snacks with smaller size. “…I was checking whether they use gelatin and what kind of gelatin they used?” -Sakiinah “ But the chocolate, because you have big ones and small ones, so I thought I can eat the small ones it’s not that bad so I ate it…” - G Young
Secondly, people tend to be more conscious if they like the tastes or the textures of snacks. Sakiinah explained that she was more conscious while eating Chio Heartbreakers, because she liked the tastes; Guilimore and Alev have textures preferences, hence they had stronger impression towards certain snacks that met the criteria. “Oh, the taste is better, I think. I didn’t like the chips..” - Sakiinah “Yes, I think the textures, like the way you can torn the part with your teeth, that’s the thing I like.” - Guillimore “I think I like the texture of the crispiness more. If there are some cookies, I would go for cookies.” -Alev
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B.5. Interview Scripts
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B.6. All the insights derived from the interviews People are conscious about the quantity they consume when the tastes of the snacks accumulate
Countable Sizes and Shapes: people lose control when the sizes and shapes of snacks are not uniform
People also use external parameters to control snacks consumptions
Taste is is an important factor mentioned by the participants. Both Chang and Kao addressed that when the tastes of snacks accumulated in their mouth, they feel that they have eaten too much. This insight is related with sensory satiation (Rolls, 2012). The tastes of the food can be considered as sensorial rewards in our cognitive system, when people experience the same tastes for a period of time, the stimulations brought from the rewards are not as strong as tasting something completely different.
Chang indicated that his quantity control depends on the sizes or shapes of the snacks. Eating snacks with different shapes and sizes makes him lose control of his total snacks intake, because “you cannot count…,” explained by Chang.
People also use external parameters, such as how much snacks left in the package, to control the total snacks consumption. Wang provided an example that she normally control the snacks consumption by observing the amount of snacks left in the package.
“…like this (Doritos paprika), this is very salty, so when I am half way eating it, I always feel like, this is too salty, I don’t want to eat it anymore.” - Chang “For some spicy snacks, the spiciness accumulates in your mouth, so at the certain point I feel like it is too spicy, and I have eaten too much.” - Kao
This insight echoes with the derived insight “more manipulations” addressed earlier in section 4.3.2. Snacks with uniform sizes and shapes enable eaters to manipulate them easily, however, in the journey of eating, the sizes and shapes of snacks mainly have influence on the degree of manipulation in the phase of handling, not in phase the oral processes. “…you cannot count how many chips you have already eaten, like Doritos or chips, they don’t have uniform shapes. It’s impossible to count while eating. When I don’t count how many pieces of snacks I have already eaten, I tend to over eat.” -Chang
“I normally have some ideas about how much I have eaten, I usually measure the amount from seeing the package.” - Wang
Moreover, Lin also indicated that he normally use “time duration” as an external parameter. Because he has “ideas about the relation of snacking time duration and quantity.” “I always eat certain type of snacks, so I kind of have ideas about the relation of snacking time duration and quantity, like how many minutes equal to how much snacks...” - Lin
These two insights pinpoint the relevance of external factors in calories consumption. These external factors normally involve sensations different from the senses applied in the oral processes, such as vision; and happen mostly during the phase of observation and handling.
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Appendix C.
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C.1. Food Ingredients On the Market Please refer to the booklet titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;Food Ingredients On The Marketâ&#x20AC;? for Appendix C.1.
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Appendix D.
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D.1. List of all the samples
D.2. The perceived texture characteristics of all the samples
D.3. The selected samples within each cluster
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Criteria for selecting samples within the clusters Two criteria were mainly used to assess samples from e ach cluster: prop ortions of the main ingredients, and feasibility. Proportions of the main ingredients is the contents of the main ingredients in the composition of the samples, the goal is to select samples with higher contents of main ingredients. Moreover, three levels of feasibility were used to evaluate each sample; easy, medium and difficult. Easy level indicates that the samples can be preser ved in the fridge, no special treatment during transportation (from the kitchen to the testing environment) is required, and the textures of the samples can be recreated easily without perceivable differences. The samples rated with the medium level of feasibility are considered samples that need special treatment during transportation and preservation to maintain the same quality, for instance, Sample 5 in cluster 6 needs to be stored in cooler bag during transportation so is considered medium level of feasibility.
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At last, the difficult level of feasibility indicates that the special treatments are required for preservation and transportation, otherwise possible food safety problems such as bacteria will be serious issues. In addition, the textures of the samples are difficult to recreate. For example, there was no sample selected from cluster 3, owing to the fact that the intended textures could not be recreated. After four times of sample making for all the samples in cluster 3 with the exact procedures, ingredients and cooking conditions, the documented textures from 3 was concluded to be an accident and was eliminated from the main evaluation.
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D.4. Questionnaire for sample evaluation
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D.5. Activities during sample evaluation
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D.6. Questionnaire for the main test
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D.7. Form for measuring Objective oral exposure time
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D.8. List of Ingredients
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D.9. Consent Form
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D.10.
Instructions & Definitions of the texture terms
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D.11.
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All the sample orders used in the tests
D.12.
Linear relationships
Dependent Variable: Efforts-Time
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Dependent Variable: Changes-Fills
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Dependent Variable: Surprise
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Dependent Variable: Objective Oral Exposure Time (Transformed)
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Dependent Variable: Subjective Oral Exposure Time
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D.13.
Model Summary & Plots
Dependent Variable: Efforts-Time
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Dependent Variable: Changes-Fills
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Dependent Variable: Surprise
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Dependent Variable: Objective Oral Exposure Time
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Dependent Variable: Subjective Oral Exposure Time
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