EFFECT OF SUGAR AND FAT ON THE ACCEPTABILITY OF VANILLA ICE-CREAM

University students (73 men and 73 women) tasted and rated on a nine-p oint hedonic scale the texture and mouthfeel, flavor (taste and odor), and overall degree of liking for nine samples of vanilla ice cream va rying in sugar (8.94 to 18.81%, wt/wt) and fat (8.73 to 19.30%, wt/wt) contents. Sugar consisted of 6% corn syrup solids [36 DE (dextrose eq uivalent)]; the balance was sucrose. Hedonic ratings differed signific antly among samples, and the best-liked sample for texture and mouthfe el, flavor, and overall degree of liking contained 13.54% sugar and 14 .99% fat. Men and women differed significantly in their liking of the flavor of the samples; men rated the flavor of the ice creams higher t han did women. There was no gender difference for degree of liking of texture and mouthfeel or for overall degree of liking. Response surfac e methodology was used to relate hedonic ratings to sugar and fat perc entages in the ice cream. Dome-shaped response surfaces were obtained for all three degree of liking parameters, and optimal sugar and fat, respectively, were 13.16% and 14.02% for degree of liking of texture a nd mouthfeel, 14.07% and 15.35% for degree of liking of flavor, and 14 .30% and 14.77% for overall degree of liking. The response surfaces in dicated that the level of sugar had a greater effect on all hedonic me asures than did fat.