AMAZING FACTS ABOUT YOUR SENSE OF TASTE
Bite into your favorite food, and immediately your sense of
taste is activated. But just how does this amazing process work?
Consider your tongue –as well as other parts of your mouth
and throat –includes clusters of skin cells called TASTE BUDS.
Many are located within PAPILLAE on the surface of the
tongue. A taste bud contains up to a hundred receptor cells, each of which can
detect one of four types of taste –SOUR, SALTY, SWEET, OR BITTER.
Spicy is in a different category altogether. In recent years
some scientists have added UMAMI to the list. UMAMI describes the unique salts
of GLUTAMIC ACID. One of them is, among others, the flavor enhancer monosodium
glutamate.
Spices stimulate pain receptors cells –not taste buds!
In any event, taste-receptor cells are connected to sensory
nerves that, when stimulated by chemicals in food, instantly transmit signals
to the lower brain stem
Taste, however, involves more than your mouth.
The five million odor receptors in your nose –which allow
you to detect some 10,000 unique odors –play a vital role in the tasting
process.
It has been estimated that about 75 percent of what we call
taste is actually the result of what we smell.
Scientists have developed an electrochemical nose that uses
chemical gas sensors as an artificial OLFACTION device.
Nevertheless,
neurophysiologist John Kauer quoted in Research/Penn State, notes: Any
artificial device is going to be extremely simplistic in comparison to the
biology, which is wonderfully elegant and sophisticated.
No one would deny that sense of taste adds pleasure to a
meal. Researchers are still baffled, though, by what causes people to favor one
type of taste over another.
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