Food & life · 2007
Can changing how a milk drink’s aroma reaches your nose make it feel more filling?
Yes, under the conditions tested. In an experiment with 27 healthy people aged 16–65, participants felt fuller when a sweetened milk drink was paired with a strawberry aroma pattern typical of soft solid foods rather than ordinary drinks. The abstract does not report how large the difference was or establish that participants ate less afterward.
Details
Aroma can reach the nose from the mouth during eating and drinking. Solid foods release aroma along this route for longer and more strongly than liquids. Researchers tested whether a drink could feel more filling if its aroma followed a pattern typical of soft solid foods.
Participants drank a sweetened milk drink while a computer-controlled device delivered strawberry aroma along this mouth-to-nose route. Each participant experienced both the ordinary-drink and soft-solid-like aroma patterns, with the order randomised. The study was double-blind, meaning participants and researchers did not know which condition was being given. Appetite was assessed before, during and after aroma stimulation.
Participants reported greater fullness with the soft-solid-like pattern. They also reported less desire to eat sweet products after sweet strawberry aroma stimulation; the abstract does not identify this as a difference between the aroma patterns. Neither finding establishes that participants actually ate less.
The abstract does not report the size of the fullness difference, so its practical importance is unclear. This small, controlled experiment supports an effect on perceived fullness, not a conclusion about reduced food intake or weight loss.
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