... taste is still the most poorly understood of the supposed five classical senses of touch, sight, smell, hearing and taste.
Taste tells us about the nutrients in what we eat, and also warns us of potential toxins. So the sensation of sour might warn you against spoiled or unripe fruit; sweet might identify energy-rich foods; bitter could warn you of potential toxins; while salt could alert you to the presence of essential electrolytes.
Taste also does other stuff. Peppermint increases the production of saliva in the mouth, while cinnamon increases peristalsis in the gut.
Taste mostly, but not always, happens on the tongue.
The tongue is not smooth. It has quite a bumpy surface. These bumps, called papillae, are part of how you taste foods.
There are four different types or shapes of papillae. Three of them are connected to the sensation of taste because they not only contain tiny taste buds, but are also surrounded by taste buds.
A taste bud looks like a tiny sphere or ball. Taste buds themselves are in turn made up of taste-receptor cells. These taste-receptor cells are clustered together, within the taste bud, in groups of about 100.
They look like the segments of a kind of mini-orange, or perhaps like the staves that make up a wooden barrel.
These tiny taste buds lie between the cells that make up the surface of the tongue. They have a tiny hole opening onto the surface.
The taste-receptor cells extrude very fine hair-like filaments upwards into this tiny hole, and into the saliva that coats the tongue. These filaments sense or monitor the various chemicals that come and go on the surface of the tongue.
At the bottom end of the taste bud is a bundle of nerves. They carry the taste sensation towards the brain to be processed.
The average human tongue has between 2000 and 8000 taste buds, but it can vary between 500 and 20,000.
On average, a taste bud will survive for about seven to 10 days before it dies and is replaced.
There is a huge variation from one human to the next, in how well we detect some tastes.
One chemical used to test this is called PROP. Some people (called supertasters) perceive PROP as intensely bitter. Medium tasters recognise it as slightly bitter, while non-tasters cannot taste it at all.
This sensitivity is related to the number of taste buds on the tongue. Supertasters have 425 taste buds per square centimetre; medium tasters have about half as many (185); while non-tasters have about a quarter as many (96 taste buds per square centimetre).
Mind you, the so-called non-tasters are non-tasters only for the test chemical, PROP. They can still register the sensation of bitterness for other chemicals, such as quinine.
And, as an interesting aside, non-tasters are more likely to be alcoholics.
The main factor involved in how you taste stuff is genetic, in other words, inherited.
But there is also an environmental effect. For example, when people are severely depressed, their sensitivity to different tastes is much reduced. And this sensitivity returns to normal when they recover.
This altered taste has long been recognised as one of the neglected symptoms of depression. People suffering from an episode of panic disorder have a reduced sensitivity to bitter tastes.
On the other hand, people who are under stress become more sensitive to the bitter taste of saccharin.
Posted by onlymark on Nov 8, 2011, 7:17pm
So the answer to why your sensation of taste is less when you have a cold or hold your nose is.............. ?
The creepy illustration of the taste buds makes me want to see what they look like when you have scalded your mouth with hot food. Like a devastated forest?
Naturally I tried to find a picture of burned taste buds online. I failed, but now, thanks to your verbal image, Kerouac, I have in the middle of my brain a grainy b&w picture of that mystery forest in Russia with all the trees blown down.
This is interesting. Who knew that shy people were more slobbery? That could make a person shy.
Posted by onlymark on Nov 9, 2011, 10:18am
My interpretation then is that you have two ways of 'tasting' food - taste buds and smell. The sum of the parts is greater than the individual, i.e. together they work far better than each separately. But then it must be that the dominant one is smell? If you had no taste buds (and there must be people like this) but have a sense of smell, they'd have a better taste experience than having taste buds but no sense of smell. No?
Many toothbrushes now come with a tongue scraper portion. I suppose it makes sense -- if you could use it without gagging.
Mark, I don't really follow your logic about the sense of smell being more important to the taste experience. I'd think it would be just the opposite. Smell enhances what you taste with your tongue, but if your tongue tasted nothing, there'd be nothing to enhance. It would also be a cruel and constant disappointment to be able to smell something good to eat, then put it in your mouth and taste nothing.
Posted by onlymark on Nov 16, 2011, 6:20am
I will do a study to determine the facts. I'll need some funds though so all donations are welcome, in fact just send me your bank details and I'll sort the rest out for you.
Posted by onlymark on Nov 16, 2011, 6:26am
By the way, there's a classic school experiment to show how smell affects taste. You blindfold someone and pinch their nose. Then get them to lick a piece of apple and potato. You'd think you could taste the difference, but it's rare to be able to do so.
How 'bout I just send you a clothespin for your nose and some Saran wrap for your tongue? That's all you were going to buy with the money, right?
Hmm. That's interesting about the apple/potato test. I've always found that apples with little smell have little taste, but thought it was just an index of ripeness or something.
So, do tongue scrapers clean off the taste buds or rip them off? I suppose one could imagine that they might remove taste buds that have died of old age and make room for new taste buds to spring up like triffids.
I admit I have tried two different shaped tongue-scrapers and unless very cautiously used - remembering not to poke the thing too far back, they give you the most nauseating reaction, watering eyes, and a feeling of ' I'm going to puke any minute'!
Kerouac - they just gently scrape away a layer of 'fur' coating the back of the tongue and are supposed to remove a breeding ground for bacteria causing bad breath. I prefer to swish some kind of mouthwash around after brushing.
I have been taking strong antibiotics for months now and have very little sense of smell or taste left. I am crap at identifying new tastes in food and most artificial fragrances such as perfumes smell like school chemistry lessons - not nice at all. Oddly though I think I can still taste the foods I eat every day since I remember what they taste like....
And, as an aside, that drawing of the taste buds I saw immediately as a garden design from an old medieval book! I can imagine an old monk with a spade in there somewhere....
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