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Asked by johntheunicorn to Duncan, Grant, Julie, Nik, Rachel on 12 Mar 2013.
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Grant Campbell answered on 12 Mar 2013:
We are designed to like certain tastes, such as sweetness, because they indicate foods that are likely to be good for us.
Beyond that, the quality of the taste depends on a combination of what ingredients we put in the food, and how we process it. Some of the taste comes from things in the food already, like sugar, while others are developed by heating the food, for example. So, the distinctive flavours of roast meat or baked bread, for example, come from the heat causing reactions between sugars and proteins to produce new molecules. Some foods taste better because they are cooked in a way that maximises these pleasant tasting molecules; some foods taste better because they have nice ingredients in them.
And beyond that, taste is a matter of personal preference, so some foods taste better because that’s what the individual likes. To me, brussel sprouts taste better than celery, to my wife it’s the opposite.
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Rachel Edwards-Stuart answered on 12 Mar 2013:
Just to build on one of Grant’s points – there is actually a simple test you can do to measure the number of taste buds that you have on your tongue and see whether you are a super taster. It is a genetically determined quality and 25% of the population are super tasters. Because super tasters taste more “strongly”, they tend to avoid bitter foods like Brussels sprouts. So actually, the reason some foods taste better to you than others could be due to your DNA – and some foods may taste very differently to you compared to someone else.
Also, the flavour of food can be affected by things that aren’t even related to the food – the colour of the plate, the size of the plate, even what music you are listening too! It is a fascinating area of research and I wish I had a day to answer your question and do it justice! -
Duncan Gaskin answered on 17 Mar 2013:
As Rachel says there is more to the way we experience food than just the taste. We look at food and make predictions of what it will taste like on the basis of what it looks like and whether we’ve eaten it before. One of the demonstrations I do in schools involves dying lemonade to look like Coke (or Pepsi!) and then getting children to drink it – they often say it tastes ‘funny’ and ‘not right’. If you get them to drink it with their eyes closed they say it tastes like lemonade!
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