Summary: Researchers uncovered that approximately one in eight adults enjoys intensely sour flavors, challenging the common belief that adults generally dislike sourness. This international study utilized participants from the U.S. and Italy to explore the liking patterns of sourness in adults.
The findings revealed distinct groups of “sour likers” who appreciate sour tastes into adulthood, similar to children’s preferences for candies like Warheads and Sour Patch Kids. The research offers new insights into taste preferences and suggests potential for tailored food products catering to adults who favor sour flavors.
Key Facts:
- Cross-Cultural Study: The study involved 143 American and 350 Italian adults, revealing similar patterns of sour preference across these diverse cultures, suggesting an innate liking rather than cultural conditioning.
- Three Response Patterns: Participants exhibited three distinct response patterns to increasing sourness: strong dislike, moderate dislike, and increased liking, with about 12% showing a preference for more intense sourness.
- Potential for Product Development: The identification of “sour likers” opens up opportunities for developing new food products specifically designed to appeal to this unique taste preference, potentially encouraging the consumption of healthier, less sweet options.
Source: Penn State
For most people, biting into a lemon would leave them puckered up and desperate to lose that sour flavor, but a new study by Penn State researchers revealed that roughly one in eight adults like intensely sour sensations.
The cross-cultural study, recently published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, demonstrated there is a subset of “sour likers” who enjoy exceptionally sour foods.
“This is the first time it’s been convincingly shown that there is a segment of adults who likes strongly sour things,” said John Hayes, professor of food science, director of the Sensory Evaluation Center at Penn State and author on the study.
Previous studies have shown that some children, roughly one in three, enjoy intensely sour things, Hayes explained, but this had not been tested directly in adults.
His recent study, conducted in partnership with researchers in Italy, was the first to show that for a sizeable amount of people, the enjoyment of sourness lasts well into adulthood.
“Think about candies like Warheads and Sour Patch Kids,” Hayes said. “The market tells us that there must be some people who enjoy them into adulthood, but now we have an estimate of how many.”
The international research team set out to test the widespread belief that adults are generally averse to sourness, which they predicted would result in a drop in liking as sourness increases.
They tested the liking patterns of sourness in two different countries across two different groups of individuals belonging to different food cultures — Italy and the United States.
The team measured the responses of 143 American adults to various levels of citric acid in water. They also measured the responses of 350 Italian adults to pear juice spiked with various amounts of citric acid.
They selected participants with similar age, gender and ethnicity — majority white — from a metropolitan area in Tuscany, Italy, and from the municipality of State College.
Participants were asked to rate the intensity and liking of a range of samples with varying sourness levels.
For both cohorts, the researchers found evidence of three distinct patterns of response: a strong negative group where liking dropped with increased sourness, an intermediate group who showed a more muted drop in liking with more sourness, and a strong positive group where liking increased with more sourness.
“Most people didn’t like sourness, so if you just average across the entire group, then you’d conclude that more sour equals bad,” says Hayes. “But if you dig deeper, you find huge differences across people.”
By gauging levels of liking, the researchers were also able to test the hypothesis that “sour likers” might just be less sensitive to sour foods, the theory that higher concentrations of sourness for “sour likers” registered the same as lower concentrations of sourness in someone else.
“You could imagine a case where they’re just less responsive to sourness in general,” Hayes said. “But that’s not what we find. We find the people that like really sour flavor actually experience it just as sour as other people. They simply enjoy it more.”
Strikingly, the researchers noted that both the Italian and American cohorts showed similar proportions of response patterns to sourness, with about 63% to 70 % in the strong negative group and roughly 11% to 12 % in the strong positive group, suggesting these proportions may be stable across cultures.
“Italian food culture and American food culture are so wildly different,” said Sara Spinelli, a researcher from the University of Florence in Italy and first author on the paper.
“And yet we end up with almost identical percentages, which suggests to us this is not an effect of prior exposure. It’s probably something innately different about those people. We don’t know what that is, but it tells us that it’s not just the foods you grew up with.”
The researchers noted that the data support the existence of previously unexplored taste profiles that respond positively to sour stimuli.
Given that sourness is classically considered to be a negative sensory attribute, the researchers were surprised to discover that that roughly 1 in 8 participants from both countries showed an increase in liking as sourness increased.
“This study highlights the importance of looking at individual differences and potential consumer segments, rather than merely averaging responses across all individuals within a group,” Spinelli said.
“Because when we average the response, all we see is a dislike of sourness, we lose this subset of people who actually love it.”
Hayes explained that this type of segmentation could be used to develop tailored products that account for the specific “sour liker” taste profile.
“This could ultimately serve to promote the consumption of healthier foods and beverages that are lower in sweetness but still acceptable to consumers,” he said.
Data collection and analysis from the U.S. cohort was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch Act funds and a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Italian data were collected within the Italian Taste project, a national project aimed at studying food preferences.
The manuscript was written while the first author was Fulbright Research Scholar at the Sensory Evaluation Center at Penn State.
Other Penn State authors on the study are Helene Hopfer, associate professor of food science, and Victor Moulinier, a sensory science intern for the College of Agricultural Sciences. The other authors from the University of Florence are John Prescott and Erminio Monteleone.
About this taste perception research news
Author: Adrienne Berard
Source: Penn State
Contact: Adrienne Berard – Penn State
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Distinct sensory hedonic functions for sourness in adults” by John Hayes et al. Food Quality and Preference
Abstract
Distinct sensory hedonic functions for sourness in adults
Over the last half-century, variable responses to sweetness have repeatedly been shown to fall into a small number of hedonic responses, implying that looking only at group means may can obfuscate meaningfully different response patterns.
Comparative data for sourness is quite sparse, especially in adults. While increased liking with higher acid concentration has been reported for some children, in adults, sourness is classically assumed to be aversive, with a monotonic drop in liking with increasing sourness.
Here, we test this assumption using a simple model system or an experimental beverage in convenience samples of adults from the United States (increasing citric acid in water) and Italy (increasing citric acid in pear juice). Participants rated intensity and liking of sampled stimuli.
For both cohorts, we find clear evidence of three distinct patterns of responses: a strong negative group where liking dropped with increased sourness, an intermediate group who showed a more muted drop in liking with more sourness, and a strong positive group where liking increased with more sourness.
Strikingly, both cohorts showed similar proportions of response patterns, with ∼63–70 % in the strong negative group, and ∼11–12 % in the strong positive group, suggesting these proportions may be stable across cultures. Notably, the three groups did not differ by age or gender.
These data support the existence of different hedonic response profiles to sour stimuli in adults, once again highlighting the importance of looking at individual differences and potential consumer segments, rather than merely averaging hedonic responses across all individuals within a group.
