The negative association between food neophobia and sensory expectations revealed through analysis of consumers’ open-ended descriptions of seafood

Food neophobia (FN) – the reluctance to try novel foods – may have served a protective, evolutionary function against consuming harmful foods. In modern societies, however, FN is a major barrier that limits dietary variety and negatively impacts acceptance of both new and familiar foods. Using an online survey (adults living in Sweden, n = 946) this study investigated the influence of FN on sensory expectations of five types of seafood (salmon, herring, oysters, octopus, and seaweed; presented as labelled images). Participants rated expected liking, emotional arousal, and perceived familiarity (quantitative scales) and described the sensory aspects they expected to like and dislike using their own words (open-ended responses). The open-ended responses were evaluated qualitatively and categorized into four sensory modalities (appearance, aroma, taste, and texture). Expected liking was highest for salmon (followed by herring, seaweed, and lastly octopus and oysters), and FN was negatively associated with expected liking for all species except salmon, possibly due to being familiar and regularly consumed in Sweden. Logistic regression was used to evaluate whether the likelihood of spontaneously mentioning each sensory modality as liked or disliked varied by species and FN score. This revealed that participants were more likely to mention liking aspects of taste and texture than aroma and appearance for all samples except oysters. Texture was commonly disliked for herring, oysters, and octopus, but not for salmon and seaweed. Higher FN scores increased the likelihood of mentioning all sensory modalities as disliked and decreased the likelihood of mentioning all sensory modalities as liked. Thus, higher levels of FN were associated with both an increased focus on sensory disliking, and lower expected sensory enjoyment across all modalities. These results suggest that FN may be at least partly driven by heightened sensory responsiveness and highlight the importance of understanding expectations prior to tasting.