A spoonful of sweetener helps the bitter food go down: Measuring the impact of added honey and sugar on sweetness, bitterness, and liking of nutritious foods via a multi-session consumer test

The standard American diet does not meet the recommended levels of many micro-nutrients but exceeds the recommended sugar intake. Increasing consumer consumption of micronutrient-rich foods can be challenging as these foods are often bitter. Adding sugar can reduce bitterness and improve acceptance but goes against nutritional recommendations. We previously found that honey is equally sweet by mass in aqueous solutions; this study works to understand the sweetness of honey in foods. The relative sweetness of honey was measured in diverse products; consumers rated overall liking and sweetness intensity for honey- or sugar-sweetened Greek yogurt, oatmeal, vinaigrette, dressed leafy greens, and three varieties of teas. Results indicated honey was only equivalently sweet by mass in the salad and significantly less sweet in other products (t-test; p<0.05). A second experiment compared the impact of added honey and sugar on acceptance of nutritious, bitter foods. Consumers rated overall liking, sweetness intensity, and bitterness intensity of foods (Greek yogurt with walnuts, vinaigrette, dressed leafy greens, dressed farro salad) prepared in three sweetener conditions (unsweetened, honey, or sugar). Except for the bitterness of the salad with sugar, sweetened conditions were significantly more liked, sweeter, and less bitter than the unsweetened condition (two-factor ANOVA; p<0.05). Honey suppressed bitterness to an equal or greater degree than sugar for all foods tested. While the relative sweetness of honey is product-dependent, our results suggest it can be used to reduce bitterness and increase liking with fewer kilocalories than sucrose.