Impact of BMI and gender on cross-modal interactions in custard desserts

Food perception and food liking are the result of multiple sensory modalities, including visual, gustatory, olfactory, and somatosensory inputs. Recently, it has been suggested that the multisensory integration occurs differently according to nutritional status. The aim of the present study was to go further in the investigation of food cross-modalities interaction by examining whether adding a butter aroma to a model custard dessert affect differently the perception of sensory properties (sweetness, vanilla and butter flavors, and creaminess) and the acceptability in normal weight (NW) and obese (OB) male and female subjects. 45 NW and 46 OB attended two sessions. In the first session, the liking of three custard samples with increasing concentration of butter aroma was evaluated. In the second session, the intensity of sensory properties of the samples was assessed. Mixed model analysis showed that the interaction BMI x samples had a significant effect on the perceived intensity of sweetness (p<0.0001), vanilla flavor (p<0.0001), creaminess (p<0.001) and on acceptance (p<0.0001). According to post-hoc analysis, the addition of butter aroma, signaling energy dense products, elicited stronger odor-taste, odor-flavor and odor-texture interactions in OB than in the control group. The interaction BMI x gender had a significant effect on liking (p<0.05), on perceived sweetness (p<0.01) and on vanilla flavor (p<0.05). Post-hoc analysis revealed that OB women gave significantly higher liking, sweetness and vanilla flavor scores compared to NW women (p<0.0001). OB men gave significantly higher scores than NW men only for acceptance (p<0.0001). Moreover, OB females perceived more the sweetness and the vanilla flavor than OB males (respectively p<0.01; p<0.0001). Understanding cross-modal interactions in relation to BMI and gender is interesting in order to develop new food products with reduced sugar and fat, which are still satisfying. This could have implications in reducing caloric intake and tackle the obesity epidemic.