Project properties

Title Development of a Taste Food Frequency Questionnaire
Group Human Nutrition and Health
Project type thesis
Credits 36
Supervisor(s) Monica Mars
Examiner(s) prof. CG (Ciaran) Forde
Contact info monica.mars@wur.nl
Begin date 2023/09/01
End date
Description Background Currently Food Frequency Questionnaires are developed to differentiate between individuals in nutrients. For example, a Fibre Food Frequency is designed to identify high and low consumers of fiber. Next to these questionnaires, ample questionnaires exist to measure food preferences. However, these represent not necessarily what people actually consume and to which frequency people are exposed to these tastes. For example, you may like pizza, but you are not exposed to the flavor of pizza on a daily basis. As many questions in sensory science have to do with exposure to specific tastes, we want to develop a Food Frequency Questionnaire which quantifies the exposures to the five basic tastes (sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, umami) and fat perception.

Aim The aim of the current thesis is make an literature overview of the existing taste questionnaires, to find out what the foods are that need to be questioned in such a Questionnaire (based on the taste database, and the Food consumption survey), to design a first questionnaire, to pilot the questionnaire among peers/volunteers and analyses whether it can differentiate between groups. Last recommendations for future improvement and validation should be made
Used skills literature research, protocol writing, designing a questionnaire, data collection (pilot survey), statistical analyses, report writing, and an oral presentation.
Requirements