# A Sorting Task with Emojis to Understand Children’s Recipe Acceptance

## TL;DR

This study explores how children from three countries perceive and accept Mediterranean recipes from different cultures using emojis and sorting tasks.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel emoji-based sorting task to assess children's acceptance of diverse Mediterranean recipes.

## Key findings

- Meat/poultry and cereal-based recipes were most preferred, while legume and vegetable dishes were less accepted.
- Children grouped recipes by main ingredient, not by gastronomy culture.
- Spanish children showed higher acceptance of foreign recipes compared to Lebanese and Italian children.

## Abstract

Food acceptability in children is a complex, multi-dimensional process influenced by sensory perception, expectations, and context. The present study investigated children’s perception and acceptance of 20 Mediterranean recipes chosen from five different gastronomy cultures (Lebanese, Egyptian, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese) using photographs as stimuli. A total of 184 children (10 to 13 years old) from three countries (Italy, Lebanon, and Spain) participated in a sorting task with emojis to express liking. In addition, Spanish and Lebanese participants completed a Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) activity to label the recipe groups they had created. The results from the sorting task, analyzed using ANOVA, revealed that recipes including meat/poultry and cereals were most preferred, while legume-based and vegetable dishes received lower acceptance. Children grouped recipes primarily by main ingredient, irrespective of the origin of the recipe (gastronomy culture). Spanish children showed higher acceptance of foreign recipes compared to Lebanese and Italian, demonstrating a significant “country x recipe origin” interaction. The CATA analysis revealed that children associated descriptors such as “healthy”, “tasty”, or “delicious” with highly rated recipes and descriptors such as “too many vegetables” and “bad taste” with lower-rated dishes. While participants showed a positive predisposition towards the “healthy” term, a negative response to recipes based on vegetables and legumes was evident.