Exploring dynamics of sensory attributes and emotions during consumption of chocolate containing maltitol applying TDS and TDE methods

Description

Chocolate is a popular snack but it is also a very energy-rich food. The sugar substitute maltitol showed 50-90% of the sweetening power of sucrose, but its energy only amounts to 3 kcal/g. Therefore, replacing sucrose with maltitol in chocolate might be considered as an important approach to reducing the total sugar consumption.
The presented study focused on the question whether replacement of sucrose with maltitol influences the sensory and emotional temporal profile of milk or dark chocolate.
Applying Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) and Temporal Dominance of Emotions (TDE) methods, forty-four untrained individuals evaluated six sensory attributes and six emotion terms, relevant for chocolate description, selected by using the check-all-that-apply method (CATA), during a testing time of 90 seconds.
As evidenced by TDS difference curves, the temporal profiles of dark chocolate were dominated by bitterness and cocoa flavor whereas those of milk chocolate were characterized by sweetness, milky flavor and a melting rate independent of sweetener. However, the milky flavor in the chocolate with maltitol showed a higher dominance rate (DR%=49.9%) and was perceived as dominant over a longer period of time than in the sample with sucrose (DR=42.2%).
The results of the TDE difference curves allow concluding that independent of the type of sweetener dark chocolate was dominated by the emotion interested, calm and satisfied and milk chocolate by the emotion happy, although not to the same extent.
According to our findings, the use of maltitol instead of sucrose in the production of chocolate does not affect the perception of the main attributes of the product and it showed no impact on the chocolate associated emotions. Thus, maltitol may serve as an alternative sweetener in the production of low-calorie chocolate with a potential to increase the milky flavor in milk chocolate.

Period	14 Dec 2020 → 15 Dec 2020
Event title	Eurosense 2020: 9th European Conference on Sensory and Consumer Research : A Sense of Innovation
Event type	Conference
Location	UnknownShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International