Reduction of sugar on rice-based milk dessert in school meals using affective thresholds and projective techniques

<jats:sec> <jats:title>Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>This study aims to determine children’s consumer rejection threshold (CRT), hedonic rejection threshold (HRT) and compromised acceptance threshold (CAT) for sucrose reduction in a dessert and explore children’s perception of low-sugar foods.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Design/methodology/approach</jats:title> <jats:p>Rice milk-based desserts were prepared with 100 g/kg of sugar and reduced versions (90 g/kg, 80 g/kg, 60 g/kg and 40 g/kg), and 90 children indicated preference and acceptance of overall impression, sweetness and consistency when samples were presented in pairs with a control sample. Based on children’s preferences, CRT was calculated; based on means of acceptance, HRT values were calculated; from pairwise comparison, CAT values were calculated. Children’s perception was evaluated by free word association of low and/or reduced-sugar foods.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Findings</jats:title> <jats:p>Results show that CRT was 78.5 g/kg; meanwhile, CAT for overall impression, sweetness and consistency were 89.3 g/kg, 86.5 g/kg and 90.0 g/kg, respectively, indicating that it is possible to reduce about 9.9% of sugar in the dessert without changing preference or acceptance compared to the recipe children are used to consuming. When sucrose concentration is reduced to 74.4 g/kg, 76.4 g/kg and 73.6 g/kg, global rejection, rejection due to sweetness and rejection due to product consistency, respectively, begin to occur. Results indicate the possibility to reduce 23.5% of sugar and maintain the acceptance. Also, children present negative attitudes towards them, but health and positive aspects of low-sugar foods may be interesting strategies to enable greater sucrose reductions without affecting children’s acceptance and preference for dessert.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Originality/value</jats:title> <jats:p>Hedonic threshold methodology has not been applied to children nor in a school context, and thus, this is the first time CRT, HRT and CAT were calculated for children.</jats:p> </jats:sec>