Meat replacer? No thanks! The clash between naturalness and processing: An explorative study of the perception of plant-based foods

A shift towards a plant-based diet is desired to promote sustainability, improve health, and minimize animal suffering. However, many consumers are not willing to make such a transition, because of attachment to meat and unwillingness to change habits. The present work explored the perception of Norwegian and French consumers' attitudes, barriers and opportunities to increase the likelihood of a shift in diet. Three creative focus groups (CFGs), using interactive tasks such as photo-collage, projective mapping, story completion and third person technique, were run with omnivorous adult consumers in each country. CFGs gathers undirected feedback, providing less biased responses than other exploration methods, related to e.g. social norms. In both countries, results were in general lines comparable. Nutritional knowledge was low regarding vegetable proteins; familiar sources of protein were mostly animal. There is a strong gap between respondents’ desired behaviour (balancing nutrition, eating less meat) and their actual behaviour: meat is very important, and the menu is often organized around it. Consumers are curious about vegetable sources of protein, but major constraints were hedonics in France, and convenience in Norway. The main barrier to a shift in diet is the lack of knowledge on how to prepare plant-based meals. Many participants find a conflict between health & sustainability in industrial products, perceiving them as highly processed and suggesting that meat replacers might not be a straightforward way to drive omnivorous consumers to shift to a more plant-based diet.publishedVersio

Sustainable diets: Links between knowledge, motivations and eating practices.

To preserve the planet's ecosystems and ensure the well-being of its inhabitants, the adoption of more sustainable diets is necessary. At present, however, consumer dietary practices often remain unsustainable. One main barrier to adopting sustainable diets is the lack of both knowledge and motivation. The primary objective of this study was to examine whether a link exists between knowledge about sustainable diets and sustainable eating practices, and whether this link is mediated by motivations. Additionally, we compared the respective roles of objective and subjective knowledge about sustainable diets. To this end, 273 participants aged 20 to 60 years responded to questionnaires about their motivations concerning sustainable food choices, as well as their objective and subjective knowledge about sustainable diets, and their self-reported sustainable eating practices. A PLS-SEM model was used to analyze the relationships among these variables, demonstrating good reliability of the indicators, internal consistency, convergent and discriminant validity, and no multicollinearity. The predictive power of this model was found to be satisfactory, with 18% of the variance explained for motivations and 34% for practices. Our results indicate a significant link between knowledge about sustainable diets and sustainable eating practices, with motivations acting as a crucial mediator in this relationship. This finding was confirmed for both objective and subjective knowledge. Subjective knowledge was thus also revealed to have a direct effect on sustainable eating practices. These findings suggest that the manner in which individuals perceive their own knowledge about sustainable diets may have a greater impact on their practices than their actual knowledge, and that motivations play a central role in shaping sustainable behaviors

Effect of sugar and acid composition, aroma release and assessment conditions on aroma enhancement by taste in model wines

Context: When congruent taste and retronasal aroma are perceived simultaneously, aroma can be enhanced by taste. Different explanations have been proposed: (i) physico-chemical interactions between tastants and aroma compounds, inducing a change of the aroma stimulus before it reaches the receptors, (ii) a contextual bias during sensory tests (dumping), when at least one relevant attribute is not proposed to the panelists to assess a product, (iii) a misunderstanding of the conceptual difference between aroma and taste, or (iv) a perceptual incapability of panelists to distinguish between two congruent percepts. This study was undertaken to better understand aroma enhancement by taste in model wines containing different sugar and acid concentrations but the same volatile composition. Method: We used a twofold approach: model wine retronasal aroma intensity was assessed twice by trained panelists. During the first session, panelists only assessed aroma intensity. During the second session, taste intensity was assessed before aroma intensity, to reduce dumping effects. In-mouth release of volatile compounds was measured by nosespace analysis with the same panelists. Results: Acid concentration influenced aroma compounds release, but it did not impact perceived aroma intensity. Increasing sugar concentration delayed ethyl octanoate (EO) release after swallowing. When taste was not assessed, perceived aroma intensity was not explained by aroma compounds release, but it increased with sugar concentration, probably because of a dumping effect. When taste was assessed, aroma intensity also depended on sugar concentration, but it was significantly correlated to the time of release of EO. Our hypothesis is that when taste declined, late aroma was more easily individualized, and thus assessed with a higher intensity. This entails that panelists focused on aroma to individualize it from taste. We concluded that trained panelists understand the conceptual difference between taste and aroma, but are not completely able to distinguish congruent and simultaneous taste and aroma percepts

Conocimiento y percepción de los consumidores europeos sobre el logotipo ecológico

El logotipo ecológico de la Unión Europea (UE) ayuda a identificar de forma fácil e inequívoca los productos ecológicos. Con el fin de estimular su uso y su reconocimiento, se identificaron tres segmentos de consumidores europeos. Uno de esos segmentos mostró un escaso conocimiento y una peor percepción de dicho logotipo y es por ese motivo que debería ser el objetivo principal de las futuras campañas de comunicación y promoción.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Understanding the relevance of in-mouth food processing. A review of in vitro techniques

[EN] Oral processing of food is the first step in the eating process. Although the food undergoes a number of changes during mastication that influence the subsequent steps, this stage has very often been neglected in studies of digestion, bioavailability, flavor release, satiety potential, glycemic index determination, etc. The present review draws on different sources such as nutrition, medicine, phoniatry and dentistry to explain some in vitro oral processing methods and techniques that could be transferred to food technology studies to mimic in vivo comminution, insalivation, and bolus formation, describing, as a necessary reference, the respective in vivo physiological processes they attempt to imitate. Developing a deeper understanding of all the aspects of in-mouth process will help food technologists to give this crucial step the necessary attention its due importance and to consider better ways to incorporate it into their studies.The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Government (project AGL2012-36753-C02) and gratefully acknowledge the financial support of EU FEDER funds. Mary Georgina Hardinge assisted with the translation and corrected the English text.Morell Esteve, P.; Hernando Hernando, MI.; Fiszman, SM. (2014). Understanding the relevance of in-mouth food processing. A review of in vitro techniques. Trends in Food Science and Technology. 35(1):18-31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2013.10.005S183135

La crise du « subprime » et ses répercussions

La crise du « subprime » n’est pas sans rappeler à maints égards les crises du passé : un accès facile au crédit, l’augmentation de la dette, la quête de rendements élevés et son corollaire, une prise de risque toujours plus grande, une inflation des prix des actifs et l’introduction d’innovations pas toujours maîtrisées. On va alors d’excès en excès (dette, prix…) ; puis, au déni (« le monde a changé… les problèmes… le cas échéant… sont limités… ») succèdent enfin la prise de conscience et le retour de bâton.d'Arvisenet Philippe. La crise du « subprime » et ses répercussions. In: Revue d'économie financière. Hors-série, 2008. Crise financière : analyses et propositions. pp. 91-95

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