Assessing liking and food neophobia for vitamin D2 enriched breadsticks among school aged children

Vitamin D insufficiency is one of the most common micronutrient deficiency in young children worldwide and may lead to impaired neurodevelopment and rickets. Few foods naturally contain vitamin D and new fortified products need to be formulated considering hedonic responses and children satisfaction as main factors during product development. Among the sources of vitamin D, the edible mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus could be used as an innovative ingredient for food fortification, due to its interesting nutritional profile. Moreover, it could be also considered a sustainable food because of its ability to grow on agri-food wastes. This study was aimed at investigating children’ acceptance of five breadsticks samples added with increasing concentrations of P. ostreatus powder (from 0% to 8%) rich in vitamin D2. One hundred and three children (47 girls and 56 boys aged 9-11 years) were recruited and breadsticks liking was studied in relation to age, gender and neophobic traits. Results showed that sample without mushroom addiction obtained the highest liking score, while liking decreased with increasing concentration of P. ostreatus. However, all the modified breadsticks enriched in vitamin D2 were well accepted by the children. Generally, neophilic subjects gave higher liking scores compared to the neophobic ones, especially for the modified samples. The results of the present study interestingly suggest that it is possible to develop new vitamin D2 enriched formulations using an adequate concentration of mushroom powder to obtain acceptable food products by children. These fortified foods could be used as a natural and sustainable source of vitamin D2 to deal with the increasing deficiency of this micronutrient among children.