Eating behaviour explains differences between individuals in dynamic texture perception of sausages

Texture perception of foods has been demonstrated to be influenced by age, dental health and oral processing behaviour. Eating duration is a significant factor contributing to and determining food oral processing behaviour. The influence of eating duration on dynamic texture perception, oral processing behaviour and properties of the food bolus have not been investigated extensively. The aims of this study are (i) to determine the influence of naturally preferred eating duration on dynamic texture perception of sausages and (ii) to explain differences in dynamic texture perception between short and long duration eaters by chewing behaviour and bolus properties. Two groups of subjects were selected based on their natural eating duration for a controlled portion size of two sausages. The group of “long duration eaters” (n = 11) took on average twice as long to consume a piece of sausage compared to the group of “short duration eaters” (n = 12). Independent of eating duration, short and long eating duration subjects chewed sausages with the same chewing frequency (p = 0.57) and muscle effort rate (p = 0.15) during oral processing. Total muscle effort and total number of chews were significantly higher (p < 0.05 for both) for long duration eaters mainly due to the longer eating time compared to short duration eaters. Bolus properties showed that short duration eaters did not break down the boli as much as long duration eaters resulting in fewer (p < 0.001) and larger (p < 0.05) sausage bolus fragments, firmer (p < 0.001) and less adhesive (p < 0.001) boli with lower fat content (p < 0.05) and less saliva incorporation (p < 0.001) at swallow compared to the bolus properties of long duration eaters. These differences in bolus properties influenced dynamic texture perception of the sausages as the bolus of short duration eaters revealed different properties than the bolus of long duration eaters. Temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) showed that short and long duration eaters perceived the same sausage similarly in the early stages of oral processing, but started to perceive the texture of the same sausage differently from the middle of oral processing towards the end. We conclude that short duration eaters did not compensate for their shorter eating duration by chewing more efficiently but were comfortable swallowing a less broken down bolus than long duration eaters. Moreover, we conclude that differences in eating behaviour between subjects can lead to differences in bolus properties of sausages causing differences in dynamic texture perception of the same sausage.