Decoding Emotions in Food: Why Understanding Feelings Matters More Than Just Liking
"Go beyond 'Do you like it?' and explore the real emotional connections consumers have with food. Unlock deeper insights to predict choices and enhance product appeal."
The author expresses gratitude to experts for their insightful commentaries on their article, emphasizing that the goal is not to counter individual points but to provide context for the article's purpose.
Drawing from years of sensory meeting attendance, the author notes a growing interest in measuring emotions, driven by dissatisfaction with the predictive power of liking/acceptability/preference measurements alone. Sensory scientists are exploring if adding emotional measures can improve the ability to predict actual food choices.
The article assumes that those exploring emotion measurement are familiar with publications in journals and books focused on consumer products but might be less aware of broader issues discussed in psychology and affective science.
What Food-Emotion Research Measures
A 2024 systematic review reports that marketing research has mainly used proximate reasoning to explain how emotional states relate to consumers’ food choices. The USDA’s Economic Research Service has sponsored the Flexible Consumer Behavior Survey since 2007; as a module of NHANES, it gathers U.S. consumers’ knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about nutrition and food choices. The 2025 IFIC Food & Health Survey marks the International Food Information Council’s 20th consecutive year commissioning a survey of Americans’ food perceptions, beliefs, and purchasing behaviors. These sources describe research and survey programs, but the supplied information does not give a single estimate of emotions’ impact on food choices.
Measuring Food-Evoked Emotion
Questionnaires are among the measures used to assess emotions associated with food products and beverages, but a 2021 review asks whether they are the best way to capture those emotions. A 2020 review notes that food evokes emotion and that measuring food-evoked emotions is a current topic in sensory and consumer science. It also describes acceptance, choice, and consumption as influenced by many intrinsic and extrinsic cues and consumer characteristics. A 2023 comparative study of two types of rice examined consumer perceptions and emotions in relation to the intention–behaviour gap.
Connecting Emotion to Food Choice
A 2020 review reports that several studies had examined emotional responses to food and their relationships with product acceptability, preference, and choice. The supplied sources therefore describe an established line of research linking food-evoked emotion with consumer responses. Another source highlights that human senses and cues play an instrumental role in food choice and intake, emotion, and product acceptance. It also reports that appropriate health-benefit information can affect emotion, purchase decisions, and food choices.
Beyond Valence and Arousal: The Nuances of Emotional Meaning
The author clarifies that the intention was not to be prescriptive, even if it seemed like favoring valence and arousal measurements over individual emotions. The core belief is that emotions like fear, anger, disappointment, joy, disgust, and awe are all real and impactful.
- Context Matters: Emotional responses are heavily influenced by the situation and environment.
- Individual Differences: People interpret and experience emotions uniquely.
- Beyond Simple Scales: Measuring simple liking might miss crucial emotional drivers.
Beyond Liking Ratings
A literature review on methods for evaluating food-evoked emotions reports that liking ratings do not accurately predict food-choice behavior. A 2026 review of electroencephalography (EEG) in food research says combining EEG-based implicit methods with explicit methods may offer a more comprehensive view of sensory preferences, consumption experiences, and physical and mental states. A 2024 study examines whether social cognitive theory constructs can predict low-fat product choices in shopping contexts and explores emotions’ role in food decision-making. These sources point to complementary approaches, rather than liking alone, for studying food choice and experience.
Method and Cultural Caveats
A 2014 PLOS ONE study notes a limitation in comparing PrEmo and the EsSense Profile: all participants completed PrEmo before the EsSense Profile, so the order was not balanced. A separate source cautions that questionnaire language can be vulnerable to cultural influences because cultures may not verbally express emotions in the same way. It warns that emotional terms can carry different cultural meanings, especially in cross-cultural research. Together, these sources flag study design and language as considerations when interpreting emotion-measurement results.
Emotion Scores and Food Choice
The study titled “Evoked Emotions Predict Food Choice” analyzed an existing dataset of liking and food-evoked emotion scores from 123 participants, who rated seven unlabeled breakfast drinks. Separately, a 2024 systematic review of reviews examined research on consumer food choice published between 2017 and 2021. Its stated motivation was to improve understanding of factors influencing food choice, including in efforts to guide consumption toward greater sustainability. The supplied descriptions do not provide results that allow a direct comparison between the breakfast-drink analysis and the broader review.
The Future of Food Choice: Are We Measuring the Right Things?
A colleague's critique prompts reflection: are measures of emotion being held to too high a standard compared to measures of liking? The author concedes the point, acknowledging that we often don't know what "liking" truly means, yet it remains a useful measure.
Consumer Trends as a Forward Look
The IFT’s 2026 consumer outlook analyzes nearly 350 responses to its Consumer Trends Survey, drawing on food-system professionals in marketing, consumer insights, and R&D, as well as longtime food and beverage trend trackers. A December 2025 article on trends shaping 2026 highlights consumers’ desire for control, comfort, novel flavor, and nostalgic connection. Innova’s 2026 U.S. food-and-beverage trends report considers drivers including proactive health measures and solo living amid uncertainty. These sources offer trend-oriented perspectives, but the supplied material does not establish how emotions will affect future food choices.
However, this very ambiguity is the problem. A better understanding of what "liking" encompasses could significantly improve its predictive power regarding food choices. The question is, how to interpret data?
The author proposes a critical examination of how "liking" has been measured over the past 50+ years and asks if we want to repeat the same uncertainties with emotion measures in the next 50 years. Are we measuring the right things?