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Sensory evaluation of organic and conventional fruits and vegetables available to Irish consumers
Author(s) -
Tobin Rachel,
Moane Siobhan,
Larkin Tracey
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
international journal of food science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.831
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1365-2621
pISSN - 0950-5423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2621.2012.03172.x
Subject(s) - sensory system , sensory analysis , food science , irish , statistics , taste , descriptive statistics , analysis of variance , mathematics , organic product , scope (computer science) , statistical analysis , agricultural science , toxicology , psychology , geography , computer science , environmental science , chemistry , biology , linguistics , philosophy , cognitive psychology , archaeology , programming language , agriculture
Summary Many Irish consumers believe organic foods taste better; however, scientific data to support this are scarce, inconclusive and limited in scope. Quantitative descriptive analysis was used to compare the sensory properties of nine organic and conventional fruits and vegetables. A panel of nine was trained according to ISO international standards (8586‐1, 1993). Independent t ‐tests of individual descriptor data and a two‐way repeated measures anova of the entire data set were carried out via SPSS 19. Statistical analysis of panel scores failed to show any significant differences between the organic and conventional samples for any of the descriptors assessed ( P < 0.05 and less) or between the overall organic and conventional data sets ( P < 0.05). In conclusion, the study found no statistically significant differences between the sensory attributes of a range of organic and conventional fruits and vegetables available to the I rish consumer.