The effect of sensory–nutrient congruency on food intake after repeated exposure: Do texture and/or energy density matter?

• Sensory cues help to predict a food’s satiating effect, and guide food intake.
• Changes in thickness and creaminess of foods alter satiety and subsequent intake.
• It is unclear whether effects of sensory manipulations change over repeated exposure.
• Repeated exposure modified intake following incongruent sensory-nutrient pairings.
• Following repeated exposure, intake depended on the energy density of the preloads.

Sensory properties guide the amount that people eat. In particular, food texture plays an important role in a food's ‘expected satiation’, which in turn affects the food-related decision making process. One hypothesis is that incongruent pairing of a textural cue with a post-ingestive outcome compromises this process, leading to poor energy compensation. Several studies examined the effect of both energy density and sensory characteristics (i.e. increased creaminess and thickness) on expectations, subjective appetite and food intake. To add to this literature, a re-analysis of data assessed whether the effect of sensory–nutrient pairings on energy intake compensation persisted after repeated exposure to a food. In this cross-over design, 27 participants consumed two preloads with ‘congruent’ (low-energy/liquid; high-energy/semi-solid) and two preloads with ‘incongruent’ (low-energy/semi-solid; high-energy/liquid) texture–nutrient combinations for nine subsequent meals, during which ad libitum intake was measured. Intake at first exposure did not differ between the low-energy (280 ± 150 kcal) and high-energy preloads (292 ± 183 kcal) in the incongruent conditions. By contrast, it was greater after the low-energy (332 ± 203 kcal) than after the high-energy (236 ± 132 kcal) preload in the congruent conditions (energy ∗ incongruent/congruent, p = 0.04). Post-exposure, this pattern changed: intake depended on the energy density of the preloads in all conditions, and was greater after low-energy preloads (day ∗ energy ∗ incongruent/congruent-interaction for breakfast: p = 0.02). Thus, manipulating the sensory properties of a food influenced energy compensation and meal size, but only at initial exposure. Repeated exposure ‘corrected’ the initial lack of compensation observed in conditions with incongruent sensory–nutrient pairings.