Estudos sensoriais para redução de açúcar e gordura em iogurte e cookie

Abstract

The association between obesity, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases and sugar and fat intake leads to initiatives to reduce the consumption of unhealthy products. Strategies such as product reformulation, portion size reduction, nutritional labeling, taxation and marketing restrictions on unhealthy products are being evaluated to contain the spread of non-communicable diseases. Among these strategies, a reformulation has been identified as a cost-effective intervention, not implying major changes in consumption habits. However, safety issues and technological and sensory aspects impair the development of low-sugar and low-fat products. The aim of this work was to evaluate the influence of sugar and fat reduction on the sensory profile of the products and to verify the impact of the reduction on consumer acceptance and preference. Two studies were performed, the first one with yogurt and the second with cookies. In the first one, the effect of the addition of flavors, strawberry and vanilla, on sweet taste perception was evaluated in low-sugar yogurt. For this purpose, we used the methods Time-Intensity (TI), Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) and acceptance test. The results showed that 25% sugar reduction in yogurt with 0.2% vanilla flavor did not affect the sweetness and hedonic perception. Although addition of the strawberry flavor did not provide an increase in sweetness perception in the same way as the vanilla flavor, the yogurt with 25% sugar reduction and 0.2% strawberry flavor proved to be as well accepted as samples with ideal concentration. Thus, study of flavor-taste interaction may contribute to the reduction of products with reduced sugar content. In the second article, Pivot Profile was applied to characterize low-sugar and low fat cookies and we evaluate the effect of information on preference and product characterization. The Pivot Profile seems to be an effective tool for rapid product characterization. The application of Multidimensional Alignment (MDA) helped to identify the attributes that were more and less correlated with each sample. No difference in preference was observed between control sample and cookie with 25% sugar reduction and fat reduction. When comparing the results obtained without and with information about sugar and fat reduction, no difference in preference and characterization was observed.