Laura Domínguez Díaz won the ISHS Young Minds award for the best oral presentation at the 15th ISHS Symposium on the Processing Tomato in Greece in June 2018 for her paper entitled” Food Neophobia: Spanish case study related to new formulations based on traditional ‘gazpacho’”
My name is Laura Domínguez Díaz, a young pharmacist and now a PhD student at Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Spain. During my second year of pharmaceutical studies, I started to be interested in the importance of taking a healthy and balanced diet as well as in the big impact of food intake and its quality in human lives. In the last year of my Pharmacy Degree, I got an undergraduate scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. At that time, I had the opportunity to work on sensory analysis of gazpacho soup, with the result of my first co-authorship (DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1159.32.). My desire to continue working on nutrition and food science area motivated me to start a PhD at the same time that I got a scholarship to study a Master in Food Safety at UCM. That opened me the doors for academic practices at AECOSAN (Spanish Agency for Consumer Affairs, Food Safety and Nutrition). I am still working on sensory analysis (consumer hedonic perception and food neophobia) of tomato products as well as on its bioactive compounds and health claims.
Nowadays, it is well known that humans must seek and select a great variety of foods in order to complete nutritional requirements since no single one food item provides all essential nutrients for survival. This concept is reflected in Rozin’paradox whose main idea is that ‘the survival of omnivores depends on a predisposition to seek novelty and variety, juxtaposed with a natural distrust of the unfamiliar’. Therefore, humans have to seek unknown and new foods but, at the same time, they are prone to avoiding them because generally people prefer the familiar over the novel. In this context, the reluctance or avoidance to eat new or unfamiliar foods is called with the term food neophobia. It is considered an important personality trait with high influence on consumers' food choices, preferences, sensory acceptance of new food products and, most importantly, eating habits and diet. In fact, food neophobia is a remarkable limitation for aiming a balanced diet as neophobic people generally eat the same type of food repeatedly, with less amount of vegetables and fruits. Even though food neophobia can appear in all age groups, its study in young adults (like university students) is highly important sincetheir eating habits are usually considered less healthy due to a high consumption of fat, sugar and salt (proper of the fast food) and a low intake of fiber, vitamins, minerals and bioactive compounds, which are presented in vegetables like the ones used in the mixture of gazpacho soup. The present study aimed to evaluate the level of food neophobia among young consumers in Madrid using the Food Neophobia Scale (FNS) and the potential influence of food neophobia levels on the scores given in tests of acceptance of new formulations based on traditional gazpacho.168 Spanish university students (90 females and 78 males aged between 19 and 35 years) evaluated 6 different Spanish commercial brands of gazpacho soup using the FNS questionnaire. The results showed that participants were mostly neophilic with high acceptance of new formulations based on traditional gazpacho. Thus, food neophobia had an influence on the scores given to these new formulations in the sensory acceptance tests as well as in hedonic values as consumers with higher scores in the degree of liking were less neophobics.
The present study is the first one to evaluate the level of food neophobia related to new formulations of gazpacho soup in Spanish consumers. This information could be valuable for food industry in the development of new food products or in dietary programs which are looking for a solution to improve diet in population.
To contact Laura:
Laura Domínguez Díaz,Nutrition and Food Science Department, Pharmacy Faculty, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Plaza Ramón y Cajal, s/n, E-28040, Madrid, Spain; e-mail: ladoming@ucm.es
