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Students discover the five basic tastes and how taste buds work on the tongue.
Have you ever wondered why a lemon makes your face scrunch up, but a chocolate bar makes you smile? Your tongue is actually a team of 'Flavor Detectives' working hard to tell your brain exactly what you are eating!
Our tongues are designed to detect five specific 'clues' in our food. These are the five basic tastes. Sweet usually tells our brain we are eating something high in energy, like fruit. Salty helps us find minerals our bodies need. Sour can warn us if a fruit isn't ripe or if milk has gone bad. Bitter is a warning sign because many natural poisons taste very bitter. Finally, there is Umami (pronounced oo-ma-mee), which is a savory taste found in meats, cheeses, and tomatoes. Most things we eat are a mix of these flavors!
Quick Check
Can you name the five basic tastes that our 'Flavor Detectives' look for?
Answer
Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.
If you look in a mirror and stick out your tongue, you will see tiny bumps. These are called papillae. Inside these bumps are your taste buds. Each person has between and taste buds! Inside each taste bud are special receptors. When you eat, food molecules dissolve in your saliva and fit into these receptors like a key into a lock. Once the 'key' fits, the taste bud sends an electrical signal through a nerve to your brain, saying, 'Hey! This is a strawberry!'
Let's look at how we process a sour lemon: 1. You take a bite of the lemon. 2. The sour molecules (citric acid) mix with your saliva. 3. These molecules land on the sour receptors in your taste buds. 4. The taste buds send a 'Sour Alert!' to your brain. 5. Your brain recognizes the taste and makes your mouth water to protect your teeth from the acid.
Quick Check
What are the tiny bumps on your tongue called that hold your taste buds?
Answer
Papillae
Have you ever met someone who hates broccoli while you love it? This happens because everyone's tongue is different! Some people are Supertasters. They have many more papillae than the average person. To a supertaster, bitter flavors (like those in dark chocolate or broccoli) feel much stronger and can even be painful. Other people are 'non-tasters' who might find food a bit bland and enjoy adding lots of hot sauce or salt. Our genes—the instructions that build our bodies—decide how many taste buds we get.
Imagine you are making lemonade. 1. If you use only lemons, the sour signal is too strong for most people. 2. You add sugar, which sends a sweet signal. 3. Your brain receives both signals at once. The sweetness 'masks' or balances the sourness, making it taste delicious instead of making you squint!
If a regular taster has taste buds in a small area, but a Supertaster has taste buds in that same area, how might they react to a piece of bitter kale? 1. The Supertaster has double the sensors detecting the bitterness. 2. The signal sent to their brain is twice as 'loud.' 3. Therefore, the Supertaster is much more likely to find the kale 'gross' or overwhelming compared to the regular taster.
Which taste is often a warning sign for spoilage or unripeness?
What is the name of the savory taste found in foods like meat and broth?
True or False: Everyone has the exact same number of taste buds.
Review Tomorrow
Tomorrow, when you eat breakfast, try to identify which of the 5 tastes are in your food. Is your cereal sweet? Is your toast salty?
Practice Activity
The Blindfold Test: With an adult's help, close your eyes and hold your nose while eating a small piece of apple and a small piece of onion. Can you tell the difference? (Hint: Taste and smell work together to create 'flavor'!)