Sensory-specific satiety: comparison of taste and texture effects

The respective contributions of taste (saltiness and sweetness) and texture (the hardness dimension) to sensory-specific satiety (SSS) were compared. Sixteen male and 16 female, young, normal-weight adults rated the pleasantness of taste, pleasantness of texture and desire to eat on visual analog scales for eight test foods, were then given one of the foods to eat ad libitum for lunch, and re-rated the same parameters for the eight foods 2 and 20 min after the end of the meal. The experimental sets of eight test foods and four lunch foods were balanced for taste quality (salty vs. sweet) and texture quality (hard vs. soft). Lunch foods were the hard and soft versions of a salty food (ham and cheese sandwich on baguette vs. white bread) or of a sweet food (apples vs. applesauce). Sensory-specific satiety was observed for both saltiness and sweetness (e.g. pleasantness of the taste of, and desire to eat sweet test foods decreased significantly after eating a sweet lunch food and similarly for salty foods), and to a lesser extent for texture (e.g. pleasantness of the texture of, and desire to eat hard test foods decreased after eating a hard lunch food and similarly for one of the soft foods). The authors conclude texture-specific satiety may be a significant component of satiety.