The influence of labeling the vegetable content of snack food on children's taste preferences: a pilot study.
OBJECTIVE
This pilot study examined whether informing children of the presence of vegetables in select snack food items alters taste preference.


METHODS
A random sample of 68 elementary and middle school children tasted identical pairs of 3 snack food items containing vegetables. In each pair, 1 sample's label included the food's vegetable (eg, broccoli gingerbread spice cake), and 1 sample's label did not (eg, gingerbread spice cake). Participants reported whether the samples tasted the same, or whether they preferred one sample. Frequency of vegetable consumption was also assessed.


RESULTS
Taste preferences did not differ for the labeled versus the unlabeled sample of zucchini chocolate chip bread, χ(2) (2, n = 68) = 3.21, P = .20 or broccoli gingerbread spice cake χ(2) (2, n = 68) = 2.15, P = .34. However, students preferred the unlabeled cookies (ie, chocolate chip cookies) over the vegetable-labeled version (ie, chickpea chocolate chip cookies), χ(2) = (2, n = 68) 9.21, P = .01. Chickpeas were consumed less frequently (81% had not tried in past year) as compared to zucchini and broccoli.


CONCLUSIONS
Informing children of the presence of vegetables hidden within snack food may or may not alter taste preference and may depend on the frequency of prior exposure to the vegetable.
Department of Animal, Nutrition, and Food Sciences, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA. efpope@uvm.edu
Lizzy
L
Pope
Randi L
RL
Wolf
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005515:Food Labeling; D005518:Food Preferences; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012574:Schools; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013649:Taste; D014675:Vegetables; D014707:Vermont