Who Wins the Taste Battle?
Give someone a choice between a chocolate cake and some bitter gourd curry, and chances are they pick the confection without hesitation. While the cake might receive appreciative nods, the curry will probably elicit disapproving looks, or even far worse.
Taste is a complex science and defines our reactions to different foods. It also defines how food manufacturers create their products and reach consumers. As people open up to newer flavours and experiences, their tastes evolve to accommodate more ideas. In the debate of taste vs flavours, understanding the nuances between the two becomes essential. We’ll go over what these tastes actually are and break the science down over why the cake won that contest.
The short answer: Yes. A resounding yes.
What Are the Five Basic Tastes?
As an evolutionary response, taste—alongside smell—has helped humans survive by sensing chemicals in the environment. Over millions of years, this has helped us interpret stale food and stay clear of things that might be poisonous.
In the modern world, food ingredients and beverage solution suppliers like us at Symega need to properly understand how taste works and how to help customers determine the suitable profiles for their products, whether culinary solutions or savoury spice. (Call it a guess, but a bitter banana bread might not really fly off the shelves.) Getting this right involves dissecting the science behind taste.
There are five basic tastes that humans can distinguish. These are detected by a series of reactions on the tongue that send taste perception information to the brain. The entire tongue can perceive all tastes, with the sides more sensitive than the middle.
So, what are the five basic tastes detected by taste buds?
Taste #1: Sweet
Taste #2: Sour
Taste #3: Salty
Taste #4: Bitter
Taste #5: Umami
The Science Behind Taste Perception
Tasting something comprises complex chemistry. Beginning with the tongue and involving the central nervous system, how we perceive different tastes is intricately designed and measured. When chemical compounds in food meet the tongue, they activate the nerve cells by altering specific proteins in the walls of the sensory cells. This leads to the release of chemical signals, which activate other nerve cells that send information to the brain on what taste to feel.
Interestingly, the impact of food colour also plays a significant role in how we perceive taste. Bright or visually appealing colours can enhance the expectation and experience of taste, even before the food is consumed.Nearly half of the sensory cells react to most of the five basic tastes, varying only in sensitivity levels. The rest of the sensory cells react to only one taste, relaying information on the intensity of the taste. The tastes and their intensity, with the sense of smell and the texture of the food, can give rise to thousands of different flavour sensations!
Source: Kerry
Can There Be More Than Five Tastes?
The science community has been trying to answer this question with no real consensus beyond the five basic tastes. We’re always searching for specialised sensory cells that can identify additional tastes if they exist. And some research indicates that ‘fatty’ could be the sixth taste. Simultaneously, research over ‘metallic’ and ‘watery’ as potential tastes could unlock new possibilities in the field of taste science.
Is Spicy One of the Five Basic Tastes?
Taste Is a Powerful Thing
FAQs
How does umami differ from salty?
Salty indicates food with a high sodium content, whereas umami indicates a high-protein food. While the regions of the tongue most sensitive to these two tastes are the same, the tastes have different taste transduction (the sequence of events involved in converting the detection of chemical molecules into taste signals).
Is spicy one of the five basic tastes?
‘Spicy’ is not one of the five tastes. Taste comes from taste buds on the tongue, but the sensation of spiciness is due to nerves related to temperature and touch sending a pain signal to the brain. The brain responds as it would to a potential toxin, numbing the tongue. The molecule capsaicin found in chillis is responsible for tricking your brain into thinking this way.
Why is bitterness often disliked?
There are signs that evolutionary selection is why bitterness is disliked, as we needed to avoid several bitter plants that were toxic or poisonous. Not being fond of bitter food is a survival technique—things that are harmful to us often tend to taste unpleasant.
