Evaluate Food Like a Professional with the 9-Point Hedonic Scale

When you eat something, you’re only interested in one question: “Do I like this thing I’m chewing?”

When professionals evaluate food, they are trying – to the best of their ability – to avoid doing that.

They are trying to NOT make a SUBJECTIVE decision (I like this, so it’s good), but rather an OBJECTIVE one (this is good, regardless of whether I like it). In other words, they don’t ask “do I think it’s good?” but rather, “is it good, period?” The difference is between the two approaches is opinion versus reality.

This is hard. After all, there are a lot of things going on with food that contribute to taste and only some of those things are objective FACTS, the rest are all opinion, right??

But professionals are trying to determine if LOTS of people will like a food – not just one or two. They are trying to understand how Taste, Flavor, and Palatability are working together to make a food objectively “good.”

To do this objective analysis, professionals use the 9-point hedonic scale.

Fun Fact About the Word “Hedonic”

The word “hedonic” means “related to pleasure.” Therefore, a Hedonic scale measures how much something does or does not make you happy. It comes from the same root that gives us the word “hedonism,” the philosophy that the most important thing any human can do during life is pursue their own pleasure.

The 9-point hedonic scale was developed in the 1950’s by David Peryam for the U.S. Armed Forces when they were measuring the food preferences of soldiers. Feeding an army is key to winning the war, and the army had a terrible reputation for serving nasty dinners. They wanted to change that, but they kept running into the problem of opinion overshadowing facts. Hence – the creation of a scale that would get rid of personal feelings.

The scale was quickly adopted by the food industry, and now is used not just for measuring the acceptability of foods and beverages, but for all kinds of things: personal care products, household products, and cosmetics among them. 

This method of evaluating food is also known as a “sensory evaluation” because it focuses in on the senses with little space for personal opinion.

Here’s what a basic 9-point Hedonic Scale looks like:

Entree Item	TASTE	TEXTURE	AROMA	APPEARANCE	OVERALL	COMMENTS

Here’s how you would grade or “scale” something you were tasting. You would take a bite, then think about each sensory input – taste, texture, aroma, etc – and mark your thoughts on a scale of 1 – 9, with 1 being this is really terrible and I’m angry you asked me to try it and 9 being make more of this and give it to me or I will rain down destruction.

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Sometimes, they don’t make testers pick a number, they just circle a stick figure trying out food to pick their reaction. This type of Hedonic Scale is usually a 7 point scale and is frequently used to test which foods kids prefer.

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We’ve had descriptions. We’ve had pictures… Even this isn’t enough.

Most people need assistance evaluating food for the first time, so they are given a list of guiding questions to ask themselves as they sample the item.

1. Taste – Do you like the flavor of the dish? This seems like it would be the easiest question to answer! Strangely, many judges find “taste”  difficult to judge. DO THIS: 
   1. Take a bite. Consider your first impressions. Take a second bite and move the food over your tongue. Certain areas of your tongue are most attuned to sweet, while others are more attuned to salt or sour, so this will help you experience all the flavors this food offers.
   2. Does the food taste the way it smelled, or differently? Consider your impressions of the food’s taste, not just good or bad; think of how you would describe it to a friend; how you might characterize it if you were trying to remember it in the future. 
   3. Consider the sweetness, savoriness, sourness, and spiciness of the food. Is one of these tastes predominant over all the others. Is it balanced?
   4. When tasting a food, it can be helpful to think about what’s pleasing about it and what you would change about it. Ask yourself this: “is there ONE thing I think should be different about this item to make it better?”
   5. Is the taste balanced? Can you only taste ONE thing to the exclusion of all others? Is the taste assertive? Intensely flavored foods are preferred by most diners over subtle or bland flavors.
   6. Note the aftertaste, if any.
   7. For example, when tasting a certain lasagna, you might note that it tastes like fresh tomatoes, pecorino cheese and too much oregano. Maybe it reminds you of a bad lasagna you had in a frozen dinner once because it has some sweetness you do not like. You might also note it is not spicy and not sour; that it is dry and could use more tomato sauce. All of this would lead you to giving the lasagna a score of 4/10.
2. Texture – Texture plays a role in taste and preferences; most people prefer crunchy to mushy and enjoy foods with a range of textures, not just one. DO THIS: Think about how the food feels in your mouth. Is it crunchy, soft, chewy, crunchy? The texture should be varied and appealing to you.
3. Aroma – 70% of taste is aroma. How a food smells in a very large way determines how it tastes. DO THIS: Hold your nose to the edge of the bowl or plate and inhale deeply. Take note of any scents or aromas you smell. You might smell flavorings or ingredients that are a part of the food you’re smelling. The smell might also trigger a memory (fairly common in comfort food!); a cereal may smell of corn if that is an ingredient. Alternatively, a chocolate chip cookie might smell not only of vanilla but also remind you of your grandma’s house.
4. Appearance – rate the appearance of the small sample you are served NOT the plated entrée; Many cooks believe that appearance has to do with the beauty of the garnish. In a sensory evaluation, we are only interested in the appearance of the FOOD not the PLATING. DO THIS: scoop up some of the dish on your fork and examine what is there. Is it uniformly one color, is it light and varied, dark or muddy,  appealing or unattractive? Would you want to try it just by looking at it?
5. Overall – this is not the column where you do your own math. Instead, rate the entrée overall as a whole. DO THIS: How well did this dish meet or exceed your expectations? Did the cook succeed in creating a dish that is tasty, visually appealing, with good texture and a pleasing aroma that most people will enjoy? Your overall score reflects your thoughts on this recipe and its execution. Perhaps a baseball analogy is best:  is it a homerun, a single, double, triple, (or was it a sing-and-a-miss?).