Özet:

Introduction: The nutritional transition in recent years has caused a decrease in the consumption of fresh foods and an increase in the intake of industrialized products, including by children. Objective: To investigate the ability of sensory identification of natural and processed foods by children of preschool age. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study with 25 children from a public institution for early childhood education. To investigate the ability to identify food by taste, blind tastings were performed and to ascertain the ability to recognize food, visual presentation was performed. Each child was exposed to 6 types of fresh food, including 3 fruits and 3 vegetables, and 3 types of processed foods. Results: There was no significant difference between the senses of taste and vision in the recognition of fruits (p=0.180), vegetables (p=1.000) and processed foods (p=1.000). Among the food categories, there was a difference in the identification by sight between vegetables and fruits (p=0.018) and between vegetables and processed foods (p=0.02) and by taste, vegetables were also less identified than processed foods (p=0.007). Conclusions: children had difficulty in identifying vegetables both by taste and by sight. Industrialized foods were the most recognized by children, regardless of the meaning used. Healthy eating in the school environment should be encouraged and extended to family life, since eating habits are formed in childhood and must be in line with the recommendations for good nutrition.

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