Tasty Vs. Smelly

Okay, there have been times when I have said something tastes like something smells. Example: Ginger tastes like LemonPledge smells.

I just read an article on msn.com called “Taste Buds Key to Health” (AP 11/20/06). It talks about the relationship between taste/smell/eating. There are people out there who are classified as “super tasters who live in a neon taste world where veggies are bitter” and “non-tasters who like veggies, fat, sweets, and alcohol”. To test to see which you are, put a drop of blue food coloring on the tip of your tongue. If you see mucho pink bumps more than you see blue that means many taste buds = super taster thus typically a skinny picky eater. If you see much more blue than pink, you are a non-taster thus typically on the heavy side with a predilection for sweets, fats, carbs, and other just-duct-tape-it-to-your-thigh foods. Most people fall in the middle.

To get back to the taste like something smells, this is the reason…

“But taste starts before a food actually touches the tongue. Even more important than sniffing its aroma is chewing, which releases vapors up the back of the nose. You think you are tasting a flavor that really you’re unconsciously smelling. It’s called retronasal olfaction, and it sends flavor information along a different, more sensitive brain pathway than traditional sniffing does.” (from the article)

Now, I’m not saying I have chewed LemonPledge, but the smell is strong enough to shoot to the back of my throat and do the above mentioned “retronasal olfaction”. Ditto with bleach, cat pee, and any other extremely intense strong smells.

I love having things explained to me!