Sweet taste preference on snack choice, added sugars intake, and diet quality- a pilot study

Humans seek to eat what is palatable, especially when snacking. Theoretically, a person who enjoys sweet taste more may choose snacks with higher sugar and calories, leading to lower overall diet quality, yet individual eating behavior traits may interfere with this relationship. We investigated the influences of sweet taste preference (assessed using a forced-choice paired-comparison method) and eating behaviors (i.e., uncontrolled eating, emotional eating, and cognitive restraint using the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18) on diet quality and added sugars intake (validated short Healthy Eating Index survey) in 65 adults (23.0 ± 5.5 years). Participants were divided into sweet dislike, moderate sweet liker, and extreme sweet liker groups by preferred sucrose concentration tertiles. Most participants selected a low-calorie, high-sweetness snack, and neither sweet preference nor eating behavior traits were associated with snack choice. Compared to extreme sweet likers, sweet dislikers and moderate sweet likers had a lower added sugars intake, F(2, 62) = 7.32, p = 0.001, and better diet quality, F(2, 62) = 4.06, p = 0.02. Preferred sucrose concentration correlated only with higher added sugars intake (r = 0.49, p < 0.001) and lower diet quality (r = -0.27, p = 0.03) but not with the intake of other food groups. Higher sweet preference increased the odds of consuming medium (OR = 2.18, 95% CI = 0.32, 6.08) and high (OR = 3.17, 95% CI = 1.85, 7.86) amounts of added sugars. Adding other covariates did not improve the statistical model. Interestingly, only sweet preference, but not added sugars intake and eating behaviors, was associated with diet quality. Thus, our data suggest that sweet preference may have a stronger influence on added sugars intake and diet quality compared to eating behaviors, although these findings should be replicated in other populations and with a larger sample size. Future studies may also assess liking for other sensory qualities (e.g., fat liking) to understand the contributions of taste preference to nutrient intake and diet quality.