Sensory acceptability of biofortified foods and food products: a systematic review.

Forty-nine studies assessed the acceptability of 10 biofortified crops among children and adults, in mostly rural, low-income settings across Africa, Latin America, and India; food products made from mineral and provitamin A-biofortified food products were generally acceptable. Compared with studies on provitamin-A biofortified food products, few studies (1 to 2 each) on mineral-enhanced crops such as rice, cowpeas, lentils, and wheat were found, limiting the generalizability of the findings. Similarly, few studies examined stored biofortified food products. Few commercial food products have so far been developed, although new varieties of crops are being continuously tested and released globally. Certain crop varieties were found to be acceptable while others were not, suggesting that particular varieties should be prioritized for scale-up. Determining sensory acceptability of biofortified food products is important for informing programmatic scale-up and implementation across diverse populations and settings.