1. Taste (Gustation)

2. Taste is a chemical sense. Fungiform Papillae have pores that allow chemicals to pass through to the 10-20 taste buds inside them. Receptor cells found in taste buds are located primarily on the tongue and inside the mouth. Each taste bud has about 50 receptor cells When activated, receptor cells in taste buds send neural messages to the Thalamus which sends these to different areas of the brain to process.

3. Taste Buds & Receptor Cells Each taste bud shows maximum sensitivity to one particular taste. Five different tastes: –Salty, sweet, sour, bitter & umami (taste of protein rich foods like Parmesan cheese) Savory Damaged taste receptor cells are replaced within a few days.

4. Taste Sweet Sour Salty Bitter Umami Fungiform Papillae

5. Paul Ekman’s Infant Facial Expression Experiment Body expressions are cultural but facial expressions are biological. Newborn baby expressions when they tasted: –Water – No expression –Sour – Pucker –Bitter – Rejection, try to take it out of their mouths. Poisons are usually bitter so we have a natural aversion to them. –Sugar – Pleasant face. Put in amniotic fluid and found babies suck more and suckle earlier. –Salt – Doesn’t develop right away, takes a few days.

6. Linda Bartoschuk – Taste Study What kind of taster are you? Super Tasters – ¼ population – more fungiform papillae, thinner, more likely in women (detect poison) Medium Tasters – ½ population (most people here) Non-Tasters – ¼ population – Taste really sweet, rich, lots of fat – as a result they eat more and are chubbier. (Survive Famines)

7. Taster Facts Women are more likely to be super tasters. Taste receptors reproduce themselves so if you burn your tongue they come back. Age though causes number of taste buds to decrease. Alcoholics tend to be non-tasters. Alcohol and tobacco kills taste buds permanently and prematurely. Sensitivity to taste changes with age. The number of taste buds deteriorates as we get older.

8. Supertasters and Nontasters Genetics and Taste Perception TAS2R38 can detect glucosinolates, a class of compounds found in foods that tend to have bitter properties Roughly 70% to 80% of the population has this gene Those that do not have this gene are non-tasters PROP / PTC is a genetically specific chemical that can identify tasters and non-tasters Higher taste responsiveness to PROP / PTC has been associated with greater perception of bitterness from caffeine and naringin (grapefruit) and greater oral sensation from ethanol

9. Supertasters and Nontasters PTC / PROP Taste Instructions Use only one piece of the PTC paper Place whole paper on your tongue Try to reach fairly far back on your tongue Let it sit on your tongue for at least 20 seconds Take note of the intensity of the taste response Extreme bitterness indicates super-taster Tolerable to moderate bitterness indicates normal status No taste, or wet paper, indicated non-taster status To remove the bitter taste try a small amount of salt.

10. What is flavor? Flavor is the result of sensory interaction – smell, texture, temperature, appearance & taste combine to form flavor. Close your eyes, hold your nose shut and try to distinguish between different foods. Taste stays the same but flavor changes with how a food looks or what temperature it is served at. Your sight and especially smell have an effect on what you experience as flavor.

11. Starburst Experiment Give someone a starburst and have them unwrap & eat it with nose plugged & eyes closed. They won’t be able to tell you they flavor but they will know the taste is sweet. When they unplug nose they can tell what flavor. Taste is bottom-up processing while flavor is top-down processing because it involves the brain making a decision based on sight & smell as well as taste. Blindfold someone and give them orange juice – one that smells of vinegar but looks all right and another that looks black (with food coloring) but tastes fine. Have them taste it and then guess which one smelled or tasted bad. They will pick the black one.