The Factors That Influence Our Food Choices

Along with environmental and cultural factors affecting our food choices, there is evidence that genetic makeup influences how we experience taste. The basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami are detected when chemicals that produce those tastes bind with certain receptors on our tongues.

Each person has their own DNA sequence, or recipe, that is different to everyone else. DNA helps determine how you taste and smell and the messages sent to your brain about what’s nice and what’s not. So each of us taste the flavour of food differently.

• Biological determinants such as hunger, appetite, and taste.
• Economic determinants such as cost, income, availability.
• Physical determinants such as access, education, skills (e.g. cooking) and time.
• Social determinants such as culture, family, peers and meal patterns.

– genetic differences make us more or less sensitive to the chemical molecules in different foods. – Our genes can therefore influence how sensitive we are to bitterness, sweetness or any other tastes.

Culture refers to the ideas, behaviours, attitudes, and traditions that exist within a large group of people. These examples illustrate how culture influences food preference. Furthermore, there are cultural differences in the way that people eat, which again influences food preference.

According to researchers, not only taste but the general eating behavior of humans including meal size and calorie intake are controlled by our genes. Studies on families and twins have found links between genetic makeup and preference to proteins, fat and carbohydrates.

Food preferences are the evaluative attitudes that people express toward foods. Food preferences include the qualitative evaluation of foods, and also how much people like and dislike them. The nine-point hedonic scale, designed to measure food acceptability, is also used for food preference measurement.

Commonly, the customers’ preferences help the manager to know who their customers are, what their customer needs are, and the kind of taste of the food that they will offer. The different likes and needs of the customers, however, call for various modifications to the menus.

1. Tastes and Preferences of the Consumers: An important factor which determines the demand for a good is the tastes and preferences of the consumers for it. A good for which consumers’ tastes and preferences are greater, its demand would be large and its demand curve will therefore lie at a higher level.

When it comes to our health, the food we put in our body can have a significant effect, especially when it comes to our heart. Weight gain, physical inactivity, stress, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity can greatly increase the risks of heart disease and various cancers.

The 7 Worst Foods for Your Brain

1. Sugary Drinks. Share on Pinterest.
2. Refined Carbs. Refined carbohydrates include sugars and highly processed grains, such as white flour.
3. Foods High in Trans Fats. Trans fats are a type of unsaturated fat that can have a detrimental effect on brain health.
4. Highly Processed Foods.
5. Aspartame.
6. Alcohol.
7. Fish High in Mercury.

If we get too much food, or food that gives our bodies the wrong instructions, we can become overweight, undernourished, and at risk for the development of diseases and conditions, such as arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease. In short, what we eat is central to our health.

Fruits are an excellent source of essential vitamins and minerals, and they are high in fiber. Fruits also provide a wide range of health-boosting antioxidants, including flavonoids. Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables can reduce a person’s risk of developing heart disease, cancer, inflammation, and diabetes.

A healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy can help to reduce your risk of heart disease by maintaining blood pressure and cholesterol levels. High blood pressure and cholesterol can be a symptom of too much salt and saturated fats in your diet.

Water is a nutrient that makes up 60% of our body weight. It is important in many functions, it is part of every cell in every tissue in the body.

Nutrients are compounds in foods essential to life and health, providing us with energy, the building blocks for repair and growth and substances necessary to regulate chemical processes. There are six major nutrients: Carbohydrates (CHO), Lipids (fats), Proteins, Vitamins, Minerals, Water.

There are 3 main macro nutrients, the 3rd most important nutrient is fats, the second most important nutrient is protein and the most important nutrient is carbohydrates.

The acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges (AMDR) are 45–65% of your daily calories from carbs, 20–35% from fats and 10–35% from protein. To lose weight, find a ratio you can stick with, focus on healthy foods and eat fewer calories than you burn.