We conducted a pilot online survey to screen for aspects of olfaction that potentially contribute to approach or avoidance of foods in adults. The invitation to complete the survey was sent to two mailing lists of the personnel of the University of Turku (Finland). The survey was completed by 83 individuals (68 women and 15 men) aged 19 to 66 years (mean 33 years). The respondents were mainly nonsmokers (94%), highly educated (72%), urban residents (68%), and omnivorous not restricting consumption of animal products (68%). They were requested to rate their sense of smell (acuity), level of annoyance experienced from everyday odors in general, and familiarity with 18 herbs/spices, to report food aversions and respective sensory perception triggering the aversion, and to complete validated measures Affective Impact of Odor (AIO by Wrzesniewski et al., 1999; score 0 - 3.0) and Food Neophobia Scale (FNS by Pliner and Hobden, 1992; score 10 - 70). Self-rated odor annoyance correlated with FNS score (Spearman’s rho = 0.27, p = 0.01). AIO score correlated with average familiarity with herbs and spices (rho = 0.22, p = 0.05). As expected, self-rated olfactory acuity correlated with the odor annoyance (rho = 0.35, p < 0.01) and FNS score correlated negatively with familiarity with herbs and spices (rho = ‑0.38, p < 0.001). The respondents who reported aversion to at least one food (n = 59) had marginally higher FNS score than the respondents without food aversions (n = 24; 26 vs. 21, t(81) = -1.74, p = 0.09). Most respondents who had aversion(s) to food(s) (68%) regarded the odor as a cause of the aversion at least in one case. Our preliminary results suggest that olfaction is important in approach-avoidance behavior related to eating. The research continues beyond the pilot during 2014 and results from a larger data will be presented in the meeting. This study was supported by the Academy of Finland (grant #267698 to A.K. and # 252005 to M.S.).