Table 4.

Summary of themes, sub-themes, and illustrative quotes of qualitative findings of participants’ dietary choices prior to the study and their initial perceptions, expectations, and impressions of NVSFs.

Theme	Sub-themes	Illustrative quotes
Dietary choices as individuals with type 2 diabetes prior to study	Strategies to control dietary intake	“I tell myself I must control my diet. I do not like to eat sweet things and I do not like to eat a lot of portions of rice, in fact only brown rice. Just half a bowl or below half.” – M, female, 64 years old
	Difficulty in maintaining healthy diet	“Keeping an eye on the kind of food that I take is also a hassle. I just cannot eat as and when I like. that is just an inconvenience actually.” – MT, male, 58 years old
	Difficulty in trading sensory properties for health	“There is no such thing that is sweet and then the glucose level would not increase, so everything got a price to pay for it, right?” – M, male, 69 years old
Prior perceptions and expectations of NVSFs pre-tasting	Conceptual understanding as modified foods for health purposes	“Sounds like it’s being modified, or they add probably things inside the ingredients. Yeah, they modify the ingredients, they add something extra. Probably they are trying to find out you know whether that will help to bring down the glycemic level, so they need to modify it.” – ML, female, 63 years old
	Sensory considerations	“My expectation, my own version, may be not as tasty as your grandmother’s or your mother’s food you know, because they got put a lot of MSG (monosodium glutamate), you know salt, and sugar, and everything. Whereas basically [NVSFs] will be quite bland.” – L, male, 48 years old “I think [the taste] should be the same as normal staple food.” – MT male, 58 years old “Maybe not for everything, maybe some [NVSFs] they are able to do [the appearance] almost the same but some they are still trying to make it similar.” – MG, male, 52 years old “I’m not particular about appearance.” – Mr. Soo, male, 62 years old
	Higher price anticipated due to special production methods	“I would think that [the price] is slightly higher. I would think slightly higher since some work has been done on this food.” – A, male, 55 years old
	Little experiences with NVSFs	“Well, most of the bread these days they add vitamins right. You can see that. Fortified, those are fortified. Maybe not [consumed] a lot, but a couple of times a month maybe.” – S, male, 43 years old
	Prior experiences with NVSFs	“I’m quite ok with [NVSF]. In fact, I have been taking such food, I mean more or less. It’s a healthy food. So long it is healthy then I would just consume. I mean they can make it nicer in whatever way, but I do not think it tastes that bad. Probably it’s a bit more course, that’s probably all. It depends on how you cook it. It’s positive [experience].” – S, male, 55 years old
	Staple food most preferred to be modified: Bread (4) Rice (11) Noodles (7)	“I think usually rice, noodle, beehoon all these. All these are the very common foods that I eat every day, for everyone.” – M, female, 64 years old
Visual first impressions of NVSFs	NVSFs associated and compared with commonly consumed foods	Bread “[Anthocyanin-fortified bread] make me feel like it’s made from pulut hitam (black glutinous rice).” – M, female, 64 years old Rice “This one is normal. Anyway, I do not take. I do not take white rice.” – MT, female, 66 years old Noodles “No different from the regular beehoon that I’m consuming. Not much difference to me.” – A, male, 55 years old
	Initial impression of unconventional colors	“[Anthocyanin-fortified] bread looks a bit weird. I mean I have not seen bread that is completely black. Yeah, I think I will not take it if it’s like that. Yeah, the color.” – MT, male, 58 years old
	Initial impression of unusual textures	“Appearance [of microfluidic noodles] looks a bit odd-looking. I believe I’m not the only one who said that right?” – S, male, 55 years old “I do not know what you call this noodle. Looks like some white colored rubber bands?” – S, male, 43 years old