Review article
THE ROLE OF PALATABILITY IN HERBIVORES FOOD SELECTION
J. Rogošić
; Zavod za ekologiju, agronomiju i akvakulturu, Sveučilište u Zadru, Zadar, Hrvatska
Abstract
Palatability is a narrowly defined term with many meanings. Animal scientists usually deem palatability to be the hedonic liking or affective responses to a food’s flavor and texture, or the relish an animal shows when consuming a ration. Conversely, plant scientists depict palatability as attributes of plants that alter preference, including chemical composition, growth stage, and allied plants. All definitions focus on either a food’s flavor or its physical and chemical characteristics. However, palatability is a complex phenomenon that integrates odor, taste, and texture with the postingestive effects of nutrients and toxins in food. Taste and smell enables animals to discriminate among food and provide hedonic sensations associated with eating. Postingestive feedback calibrates taste (hedonic sensation) commensurate with a food’s homeostatic utility. Thus, palatability is the functional relationship between taste and postingestive effect, and palatability changes in response to a food’s usefulness. The sensation of being satisfied to the full (i.e. satiety) occurs when animals ingest adequate kinds and amounts of nutritious food and animals acquire preferences for food that cause satiety. Unpleasant feelings of physical discomfort (i.e. malaise) are cause by excesses of nutrients and toxins and by nutrient deficit, and animals acquire aversion to food that causes malaise. Generally, palatability increase when a food ameliorates malaise and decrease when a food causes malaise. An animal’s experiences, particularly early in life, also exert a profound influence on a food’s palatability. As a result of eating particular food and not eating other, young animals acquire dietary habits.
Keywords
palatability; preference; Herbivores Food Selection
Hrčak ID:
24335
URI
Publication date:
15.3.2008.
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