Background: Reduced taste and smell, chewing problems and swallowing dysfunction are common among elderly people and affect perception, food choice and the ability to eat. Objective: To study the preference for texture-modified carrot and meat products in elderly people aiming to meet the needs of people with impaired chewing and/or swallowing. Design: Data were collected using questionnaires focusing on health, oral status and preference for the products. Altogether, 108 elderly people in ordinary housing (OH) and 50 living in special housing (SH) in Malmö (SH-M) and Göteborg (SH-G) participated. Results: 19% had a body mass index 522, predominantly in SH (24%). Stroke was reported by 20% of the subjects in SH. Among those with subjectively experienced difficulties in swallowing (12%), 58% reported coughing, 21% a gurgly voice in association with food intake and 50% obstruction during swallowing. Only 20% with subjective swallowing difficulties had been specifically examined regarding this problem. All the tested products were easy to masticate and swallow. Compared with OH, people in SH-M found the meatproducts easier to masticate and swallow. Compared with OH, subjects in SH found the carrot products easier to masticate. Conclusions: There is a need to develop tasty texture-modified nutritious food products for people with mastication and/or swallowing problems. Possible factors for differences in preference between groups, in this study OH and SH, may be related to health status in general and specifically mastication and swallowing functions.

Background : Because of changing food habits that may influence nutritional status it is important, especiallyin children, reproducibly to describe and analyse the timing and frequency of eating and the composition of different types of eating episodes.

Objective : To describe eating patterns of 3 -5-year-old Swedish preschool children by analysing 7 day food records using the Food-Based Classification of Eating Episodes (FBCE) model.

Design : Food intakes were categorized into four types of ‘‘meals’’ and four types of ‘‘snacks’’, according to their food profile. Complete 7 day weighed and estimated food records for 109 children were processed and analysed.

Results : On weekdays the children ate significantly more frequently than on weekend days, having 5.6 and 5.2 eating episodes per day, respectively. More eating episodes were classified as ‘‘meals’’ on weekdays than on weekend days: 72% and 60%, respectively. On average for the whole week, 43% of the daily energy intake was derived from ‘‘complete meals’’ (CM) and 34% from ‘‘incomplete meals’’ (IM). CM contributed significantly more energy and more nutrients, except for calcium, than did IM. In low-quality snacks (LS), sucrose contributed with about one-third of the energy content and the nutrient density was low.

Conclusions : The qualitative FBCE model verified nutritional characteristics of the children’s diet previously found in the same cohort by the traditional dietary assessment methods. Processing of the dietary data by the model to show the prevalence and temporal distribution of eating episodes appears to be an applicable toolfor nutritional screening of children’s eating patterns.