Food comfortability: a new concept to assess the acceptance of various food textures by elderly people suffering from oral health problems

Mathilde Descamps (1) , Claire Sulmont-Rossé (1) , Chantal Septier (1) , Gilles Feron (1) , Hélène Labouré (1, 2)

1 CSGA - Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation [Dijon]
2 AgroSup Dijon - Institut National Supérieur des Sciences Agronomiques, de l'Alimentation et de l'Environnement

Oral health changes with ageing and sometimes, eating food can be a real challenge. One of the solutions could be to give food with modified texture: pureed ground or even reconstituted meat. This solution is not necessarily adapted to all oral health problems encountered by the elderly, and food could be perceived as uncomfortable. The aim of the present study was to understand why some foods are considered as comfortable and some others are not, and if the judgment of comfortability is linked to oral health. 39 elderly people, half with a good oral health - no missing teeth except third molar, at least 7 posterior dental occlusions and no denture - and half with a poor oral health - less than 5 posterior dental occlusions - were recruited. These subjects tasted six meat products differing by their origin and texture: a ground and a plain beef, beef cheek, chicken aiguillette, reconstituted chicken aiguillette and chicken balls. For each product, the elderly subjects had to complete a new questionnaire designed to evaluate food comfortability through the following dimensions: the easiness to eat the peice of meat, the action needed to masticate and swallow, the potential pain felt during tasting, and the intensity and the embarrassment of texture and flavor descriptors. The results showed that the developed questionnaire allows discriminating food matrices and showing that comfortability of food consumption can be defined by texture, potential pain felt during tasting, or even the action needed to masticate and swallow. The influence of oral health on food comfortability will be discussed.

Mots clés: elderly; comfortability; chewing behaviour; saliva; food

Domaines: Alimentation et Nutrition

Mathilde Descamps, Claire Sulmont-Rossé, Chantal Septier, Gilles Feron, Hélène Labouré. Food comfortability: a new concept to assess the acceptance of various food textures by elderly people suffering from oral health problems. 4. international conference on food oral processing - “Food Oral Processing through life: interplay between food structure, sensory, pleasure and nutritional needs.”, Jul 2016, Lausanne, Switzerland. 1 p. ⟨hal-01512148⟩