Despite having quite a big sweet-tooth, there are many times when I bite into a snack and find that I am overwhelmed by the amount of sugar in what I am eating. According to a recent study by Monell Center, a non-profit scientific research institute in Philadelphia, I am not the only one that shares this opinion.
Monell center examined 393,568 individual food reviews of over 67,000 products, which were posted by more than 256,000 Amazon customers. This study took place over a 10-year period and used data posted on an open-source data science site.
Researchers were able to break down reviews by words related to taste, odor, texture, spiciness, cost health and customer services and then added the number of reviews that mentioned these categories. They found that words related to taste were mentioned in over 30% of the reviews they analyzed.
Danielle Reed, PhD, a behavioral geneticist at the Monell Center had the following to say about the study in this article by Foodnavigator-USA, “This is the first study of this scale to study food choice beyond the artificial constraints of the laboratory. Sweet was the most frequently mentioned taste quality and the reviewers definitively told us that human food is over-sweetened.”
In fact, the study showed that sweet taste was mentioned in 11% of the product reviews. In comparison, this was over three times more often than bitter taste was mentioned. Surprisingly, saltiness was rarely mentioned despite an amount equal concern about excess salt content in food.
This study may influence manufacturers to consider lowering the sugar content of their products when developing new confections in the future. If that isn’t enough to convince them, they should also take into account the rising demand for organic and health conscious snack options driven by young consumers.
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