Biscuits Textures Affect Perceptions of Healthiness

Biscuits textures affect perceptions of healthiness

The study, led by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), investigated people's perceptions of biscuits with different textures. The research involved 88 people rating the six oat biscuits on healthiness, tastiness, crunchiness and likelihood of purchase based on their visual appearance (Cathrine V., 2020)

Previous studies have shown that packaging and the texture of a cup or plate can alter people's perception of Biscuit. This new study showed how a product itself could be perceived differently depending on its appearance (Cathrine V., 2020).

Oat biscuits can represent both a "healthy" and "unhealthy" snack. The research found that the surface texture of the oat biscuit communicated to people how healthy it was likely to bei and the biscuits that had a less explicitly textured surface were perceived to be tastier and also more likely to be purchased. The study found that purchasing the biscuit increases when perceived healthiness is low and decreases when healthiness is higher. By the way, having a 'healthy looking' texture is considered to be a negative attribute in that it would reduces tastiness, and it’s a key criteria for purchasing biscuits (Cathrine V., 2020).

Dr Jansson-Boyd, Reader in Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University has said that the findings are exciting and it's give food manufacturers a means to design foods that can help consumers make healthier choices. The World Health Organisation has declared that there is an epidemic, it is important to think of ways to encourage improved eating patterns. The research provides a good starting point in how to promote healthier food products (Cathrine V., 2020). Anyway, the package of nutrition labels could show consumers to make healthier food choices and It’s encourage the industry to provide healthier foods (Charo E, 2015).

References

Cathrine V. Jansson-Boyd, Mateja Kobescak. To see is to hold: Using food surface textures to communicate product healthiness. Food Quality and Preference, 2020; 81: 103866 DOI

Charo E. Hodgkins, Monique M. Raats, Chris Fife-Schaw, Matthew Peacock, Andrea Gröppel-Klein, Joerg Koenigstorfer, Grazyna Wasowicz, Malgorzata Stysko-Kunkowska, Yaprak Gulcan, Yesim Kustepeli, Michelle Gibbs, Richard Shepherd, Klaus G. Grunert. Guiding healthier food choice: systematic comparison of four front-of-pack labelling systems and their effect on judgements of product healthiness. British Journal of Nutrition, 2015;

Leading image source: stock.adobe/com