5 Delicious Tidbits You Might Not Know

Taste is one of the main senses that, like others, can give us a lot of pleasure. Thanks to it we recognize the ingredients that make up this dish step by step, thereby delivering incredible pleasure to our taste buds. Have you ever wondered how this flavor actually works? What factors determine how we feel about it? I have prepared an article full of interesting facts that will allow you to explore this topic.

Let's start from the beginning. As it turned out, the four main tastes, namely sweet, salty, bitter and sour, were discovered as early as 2,400 years ago (probably by Democritus)! In turn, the fifth flavor that we know today – umami-is a relatively recent "invention" made by Dr. Kikunae Ikeda in 1908. In Japanese, umami means "essence of deliciousness", often described as a meaty, spicy, deepening taste.

There is also a phenomenon defined by hemesthesia - that is, the taste sensations caused by various chemical compounds. The most common sensations are those caused by eating foods with a sharp taste, such as chili peppers, or feeling cool after eating menthol snacks or sweets.

How do we know the taste?

Taste sensations are responsible for approx. 20% of the tasting sensations, and almost everything else, or as much as 80%, is the sense of smell. Smell is a much more complex stimulus. In 2004, scientists Richard Axel and Linda Buck won the Nobel Prize precisely for their research on the olfactory system and olfactory receptors – thanks to them, we know what an important function this sense performs in the context of food consumed.

The sense of smell is captured by specialized chemoreceptors that respond to the presence of so-called chemoreceptors. odorants (specific chemical components). While taste receptors (for example, those responsible for sweetness) activated by various compounds (such as fructose or sucrose found in food), different compounds trigger only a specific smell receptor.

Taste is also perceived with the help of receptors located on the taste buds of our tongue (simply put: here we are talking about small dots visible to the naked eye on the surface of the tongue). It is thanks to them that we can identify different tastes by sending signals to our brain. Interestingly, the sweet, bitter or umami receptors are also located in other places, such as in the intestines! Bah, there are even animals that can sense taste with other parts of the body-here an example would be a fly using its legs to do this.

What factors influence our "reception" of taste?

#1 native flavor

There are many factors that determine how we experience a particular taste. It might even be… education in a specific cultural environment.

Anyone who has visited Asian countries will have noticed that the local cuisine is dominated by the umami taste, which is so absent from European culinary culture. The differences are also evident in the level of sharpness-anyone who has had the opportunity to eat, for example, original Thai dishes prepared by indigenous Thais knows!

# 2 taste sucked with breast milk?!

It turns out that the way we sense tastes develops in us even before birth. Often, what our mothers "fed" us in the life of the fetus affects our taste preferences in the future.

Sensitivity to taste also changes with age. Children love sweets, because the young body is focused on eating food with a high energy value. Older people, in turn, tend to overdo their meals – this is because their taste buds work less and taste differently.

There is also a so-called phenomenon. ageusia, that is, blindness of taste, consisting in the inability to feel and characterize the sensations that arise from food. Often, unfortunately, this is due to a certain disease, which may be another factor affecting the taste sensation.

# 3 Taste the previous meal

Do you know why in restaurants the waiter often brings us a basket of bread at the beginning of the feast? This is not so that we eat too much of it — its main purpose is to clear the taste buds of the remnants of what we ate before.

Experts have proved that what we eat can affect the perception of the taste of the next dish.

Another way to cleanse your taste buds is to m.in drink sparkling mineral water before meals or eat a few crackers.

# 4 dry air and temperature vs. taste

The way you taste also changes due to environmental factors. Among them, you can note: m.in. air humidity. When it is too dry, the amount of saliva produced decreases and, as a result, our sensitivity to taste decreases. Dry air is often present in the cabin, so salted nuts or pretzels are often served on board, which characterize the expressive taste.

Another factor that affects the perception of taste is temperature. Warm dishes (above 30 ° C) seem to us more flavorful and delicious than those that have a lower temperature. You may have had the opportunity to drink a warm carbonated drink of a well-known brand... or do you also think that uncooled is too sweet? Exactly!

# 5 superdegusters among us!

There is a group of people among us, the so-called. superdegustatorswhich are extremely sensitive to taste. This depends on genetic factors, so if you find the taste of kale, kale, broccoli, or Brussels sprouts particularly bitter, you may be one of the true foodies. The same applies to coffee-superdegusters perceive its taste as extremely bitter. This is probably why they often add milk or cream to it.

The study of taste and smell was conducted by American psychologist Linda Bartoszuk, who showed that such people are less likely to be obese. There are more superdegusters in Asia, Africa, and South America than in the Caucasus.

To sum up

These are just some of the interesting aspects that affect the sense of taste. Despite the fact that we all have taste buds, each of us feels the taste differently. Thanks to this, we can constantly discover new tastes, and the culinary richness is undoubtedly increasing!

Hopefully, thanks to this article, the next time you go to a restaurant or board a plane, you will also think about taste buds. 😉