Effect of limiting snack food variety across days on hedonics and consumption

Decreased variety within a meal reduces intake, which is hypothesized to be due to sensory-specific satiety. This study examined whether reduced variety across days also influences food hedonics and intake. Twenty-one, non-obese, college-aged, dietarily unrestrained males were randomized to one of two conditions: a Same Snack condition in which they were given the same sweet snack food (crumb cake) to eat in four laboratory sessions and to take home and eat between sessions, or a Variety condition in which they were given different snack foods (both sweet and salty) to eat in four sessions and to take home and eat between sessions. Dependent measures were caloric intake from crumb cake and hedonic ratings of snack foods in sessions 1 and 4. Mixed repeated measures analysis of variance found no effect of snack food variety on consumption. However, the Same Snack condition had a lower hedonic rating of the crumb cake on Day 4 than the Variety condition and the change from day 1 to 4 in hedonics of the crumb cake was greater than that of the salty snack foods in the Same Snack condition. These findings indicate that limiting variety across several days reduces hedonics of the limited food.