Long-term acceptability of limited diets

A food with long-term acceptability can be eaten one or more times a day without the consumer becoming "tired" of eating it. Few foods are eaten as often as once a day, but those that are can give us some clues about the attributes associated with long-term acceptability. Studies by the armed forces in the late 1950s showed that most foods decreased in liking when repeatedly consumed and that the rate of decline depended on the specific food. Current techniques for measuring the liking of foods (typically using a hedonic category scale) do not necessarily indicate long-term acceptability. Our data on repeated consumption of two versions of tea suggests that taste test measurements can be quite misleading. A relatively newer measurement, sensory-specific satiety, may provide a rapid method for measuring long-term acceptability.