Sweet and sour discrimination abilities of elderly people compared to those of young adults in apple purée

- Sweet and sour taste discrimination performances were measured separately in apple purees.
- Despite sweetness-sourness interactions, no masking effect was found on discrimination abilities in our conditions.
- Discrimination abilities for sweet and sour tastes seem to be relatively stable with age.

The number of elderly people is growing in Europe. A decrease in gustatory capacities (detection, identification, discrimination) is associated with aging. In the literature, discrimination abilities have been studied mainly in aqueous model solutions, but less is known about sensitivity in real food matrices. Moreover, in foods, taste interactions can occur and modify perceptions (masking effect). This study aimed to compare the discrimination abilities of elderly people and younger adults when tasting apple purées and hypothesized that: discrimination abilities are lower in a group of elderly people (H1) and that taste interactions can modify discrimination performances (H2). A total of 105 young adults (18-40 years-old) and 130 elderly people (65+ years-old) were recruited in France and Poland. Their discrimination abilities were measured for sweet and sour tastes in apple purées. Pairs of apple purées with different sugar/acid concentrations were presented to participants and they were asked to indicate the sweetest/sourest sample. The results showed that the performances of the elderly people group were as good as those of the young adults group for sweetness (chi2 = 0.036, p = 0.850) and sourness (chi2 = 0.271, p = 0.603) discrimination. For both groups, a difference of 10 g/kg of sucrose or 0.25 g/kg of malic acid was enough to discriminate two samples (p < 0.001). In our experimental conditions, no significant masking effect was found. These results could help food industries to develop new fruit-based foods that match the sensory perceptions of elderly people.