The Science Behind Why Texture Rules Our Plates
Research conducted by Szczesniak in the USA highlighted the significance of food attributes, revealing that texture is just as crucial as flavor. This groundbreaking finding dates back to the 1960s but has gained incredible momentum in recent years. In fact, texture has been shown to be more important than the actual flavor of food in terms of food preferences across different age and cultural groups.
What makes this discovery so striking is how it challenges everything we thought we knew about food preferences. Scientists have found that our brains process texture information through completely different pathways than taste and smell. Texture sensation is largely a physical mechanism, where mechanoreceptors are the main devices for the detection and sensation of such features. This means your mouth is essentially running two separate sensory programs simultaneously when you eat.
The Hidden Power of Mouth Behavior
Qualitative research across 10 years has led to the thesis explored in this research that individuals have a preferred way to manipulate food in their mouths (i.e., mouth behavior) and that this behavior is a major driver of food choice, satisfaction, and the desire to repurchase. This concept of mouth behavior is revolutionary. Scientists have identified distinct groups of eaters: Chewers, Crunchers, Smooshers, and Suckers.
Each group processes food differently, creating unique textural experiences from identical foods. Individuals, in many cases, will perceive the texture of the same food differently because they are bringing their Mouth Behavior preference to the food being eaten. This explains why your friend might love crunchy peanut butter while you prefer smooth, or why some people can’t stand the texture of mushrooms regardless of their flavor. It’s not just preference, it’s biology.
Why Your Brain Loves Texture More Than You Think
In addition to the direct contribution to consumer acceptance, texture also has a vital secondary role on modulating flavor release and perception. Here’s where things get really interesting. Texture doesn’t just exist alongside taste and smell, it actually controls how we experience them. If flavor components in a food are to be sensed, they must be released from the food matrix to reach the appropriate taste receptors. This release of flavor is closely associated with the way in which the food structure breaks down in the mouth relating to both the initial texture of the food and the change in texture throughout mastication.
Think about it this way: without the right texture, even the most flavorful ingredients can’t reach your taste buds properly. It’s like having the best sound system in the world but playing music through broken speakers. The texture acts as the delivery system for all the other flavors you’re trying to experience.
The Crunch Effect: When Sound Becomes Taste
Researchers at Brigham Young University in the US state of Utah have found that you should block out distracting background noises during your meals and instead focus on foods that crunch and crackle when you bite and chew. Marketing lecturer Ryan Elder and his team found that people unconsciously eat less as a result. The scientists call this the “crunch effect”.
The explanation is relatively simple: when we eat food that makes loud noises when we chew, it distracts us and we focus more on the sounds than on the taste. In addition, the cracking sounds signal that we are eating something solid, which our brain associates with satiety. So we eat more slowly and stop earlier because we feel fuller. This discovery has huge implications for weight management and healthy eating habits.
Texture as the Ultimate Satiety Signal
Studies suggest that the texture of food also influences satiation, a feeling of fullness and satisfaction, which has a direct relationship to the amount of food consumed. Foods that are more viscous, thicker, and with more chunks have been reported to slow down consumption, making people feel full or satisfied earlier than liquid, runny, smooth, or homogenous foods.
These findings suggest that texture influences satiety perception and eating behavior, with chunky textures promoting greater feelings of fullness and satisfaction. Food manufacturers should consider texture modification as a strategy to promote satiety and reduce calorie intake in food products. This means the secret to eating less might not be about changing what you eat, but how it feels when you eat it.
Cultural Textures: How Geography Shapes Our Preferences
Cross-cultural variability in texture preferences was noted among Western, Asian, and Middle Eastern populations, highlighting the importance of considering cultural factors in product development. What feels appetizing in one culture might feel completely wrong in another. In Japan, where rice, noodles, and bread are staple foods with no overpowering taste or odour, the palatability of these foods is largely determined by their texture.
This cultural dimension adds another layer to the texture story. It’s not just individual biology driving our preferences, but also learned behaviors passed down through generations. Understanding these cultural texture patterns has become crucial for global food companies trying to create products that appeal across different markets.
The Emotional Side of Texture
Cross-cultural variability in texture preferences was noted among Western, Asian, and Middle Eastern populations, highlighting the importance of considering cultural factors in product development. Furthermore, texture was found to elicit emotional responses during eating, with certain textures evoking positive emotions while others elicited negative ones.
Texture preferences are not only driven by sensory attributes but are also influenced by emotional and psychological factors. Research suggests that certain textures may evoke nostalgic memories or feelings of comfort, leading to a preference for familiar textures. This explains why comfort foods often have specific textures that trigger emotional memories from childhood.
Age and Texture: How Our Preferences Evolve
Texture properties of foods are particular drivers for food acceptance and rejection in children. Measuring food texture preferences or acceptance in children at different ages is important for understanding the texture progression in children’s diets. Children show distinctly different texture preferences than adults, often rejecting foods based purely on how they feel rather than how they taste.
Specifically, oral health problems may influence texture perception, oral processing, and/or ability to swallow, with downstream influences on food acceptability, liking, and intake. For example, with aging, oral problems may increase as the strength of jaw masticatory muscles decreases, affecting chewing and biting behavior. This means our relationship with texture continues evolving throughout our entire lives.
The Future of Texture Innovation
If 2024 was the year of “swicy,” 2025 is lining up to be all about texture. Key fact: In Whole Food’s Top 10 Food and Beverage Trends for 2025, “Crunch” was singled out as the texture of the moment. Food companies are now investing millions into texture research and development.
Texture innovation: ‘Air is the ingredient of the future’ – “Texture is the next thing,” said Morgaine Gaye, a global food futurologist based in the UK. This shift represents a fundamental change in how the food industry thinks about product development. Instead of focusing purely on flavor combinations, they’re now engineering specific textural experiences.
The Texture-Preference Connection
Analysis of the food preference scale for imbalanced diet revealed that smooth-texture likers were more likely to be picky eaters than firm-texture likers. This finding suggests that texture preferences might be early indicators of broader eating behaviors and potential dietary issues.
Food texture preferences not only influence consumption, but also food aversion. Food aversions are associated with an increased risk of nutritional deficiencies, as they hinder a balanced intake of nutrients from various foods and reduce overall food intake. Understanding someone’s texture preferences could be key to helping them develop healthier eating habits.
The Science of Individual Differences
We review the relation between food texture perception, consumer preferences and satiety expectations. We assess the methods used to measure and model these relationships, as well as presenting two case studies on: the role of dynamic texture perception in consumers’ expectations of satiety and satiation and identifying temporal drivers of liking and satiation. We highlight the importance of studying individual differences as there are groups of consumers that react differently to the textural changes.
This research is revealing that texture preferences are far more complex and individual than previously thought. Two people can eat the same food and have completely different textural experiences based on their individual oral physiology, eating behaviors, and psychological factors.
The Texture Revolution Is Just Beginning
The evidence is overwhelming: texture isn’t just a side player in our eating experiences, it might be the main character. From controlling flavor release to triggering satiety signals, from evoking emotional memories to driving cultural preferences, texture influences almost every aspect of how we experience food. Research has suggested that texture lagged behind taste and smell – and only occasionally beat out temperature – in terms of the perceived impact on flavor, yet modern research suggests this ranking severely underestimates texture’s true power.
As we move into 2025, the food industry is finally catching up to what scientists have been discovering for decades. Texture innovation is becoming as important as flavor development. For consumers, this means we might need to start paying more attention to how our food feels, not just how it tastes. The next time you find yourself loving or hating a particular food, ask yourself: is it really about the taste, or is it all about the texture? What do you think – have you been underestimating the power of texture in your own eating experiences?
