Tag: Taste

Food Preferences

I’ve been pondering food preferences. I prefer ice in my water. I hate sweetened tea. I love hot coffee, like iced coffee with milk, and cannot stand room temperature coffee.

The origin of some of my preferences is clear. My dislike for sweetened tea began when I was three or four. My grandmother wouldn’t let me have a glass of sweet tea until I’d had one without sugar. At some point, the sweetened tea began to taste overwhelmingly sweet and I no longer preferred it. But I can’t explain my coffee preferences or why I like blanched broccoli better than raw broccoli (even in salad).

While my tastes lean toward specific preparations of a wide variety of foods, others only like a narrow variety of flavors or textures. Some preferences may be learned. Others stem from visceral response. Still others may be attached to memories that aren’t specifically food related.

Then there are preferences related to biology. Some foods can activate the mesolimbic reward system in a manner similar to alcohol and frequently abused drugs. For instance, studies have shown that consuming fat and sugar produces an increase in the synthesis and secretion of opioids and dopamine within the central reward system. No wonder it’s so hard to get kids to stop eating sugary treats.

Obviously, it’s preferable for food to be pleasing to our senses. But if that leads to habitually unhealthy food choices, perhaps pleasure shouldn’t be the primary goal of an eating plan. And while most of us might argue it’s not, we tend to choose each individual meal within our plan based on what we find appetizing that day.

The key is how often what we find appetizing in the moment is at odds with our overarching health plan. For some people, the two will almost always be in sync. For me, the problem area doesn’t fall so much in planned meals. I love fresh vegetables, meat, poultry, and fish fixed millions of different ways. And I love playing with flavors.

My problem area is quick grab meals and snacks. I am more likely to want to reach for chips, crackers, or chocolate than raw carrots as a snack. As long as that’s rare, it’s no big deal. When it’s daily, it’s not healthy.

There are many ways for me to manage my choices. And because I love to sink my teeth into a fresh tomato or juicy peach, it doesn’t take too much planning. But watching my grandchildren, I wonder whether that management will be more difficult for them. Their preferences are being set with a less robust variety of fresh, unprocessed food and many more packaged products.

I think we’ve already answered that question with the increase in childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes. And yet, I’m not sure we’ve spent much time researching the issue from a parenting for healthy eating perspective. Which brings me to the reason I’m pondering food preferences.

There seems to be a huge opportunity for learning and teaching. I love a good opportunity!

Fed Up?

When It’s Sticky, Does It Taste Icky?

When it’s sticky, does it taste icky? Your first response is probably, NO! Who doesn’t love a sticky bun or maple syrup or a toasted marshmallow? But I don’t really mean the food itself. I mean the weather. Due to high humidity and hot temperatures, we have lots of sticky days here in the summer. And humidity, whether low or high, affects both the making and perception of food.

If you’ve always lived in a humid region, there’s no reason to notice this. The same is true if you’ve always lived in a dry climate. But those of you who have moved around may have seen the results of your baking change.

You can use the very same ingredients and technique but find it impossible to exactly duplicate the results you got in your previous home. When the humidity is high, you may notice that it’s easier to prepare soft breads than crusty breads or that baking takes longer.

Humidity level also affects our perception of taste. The ideal humidity in a house is around 50%. In my house, it ranges from 50 – 60 percent in warm weather. It can even climb higher if I don’t use the dehumidifying feature on my air conditioner. At this level, food tastes good.

When you fly in an airplane, the humidity drops under 30%. At that level, your perception of taste will not be as acute. Airline food vendors may attempt to compensate for blandness, but few of us have every had a satisfying meal on board. Fighting both low humidity and high altitude makes it difficult to create the ideal culinary experience.

Commercial bakeries often employ humidity control devices to improve the consistency of their product. At home, there are a few things you can do to prevent icky food:

  1. When it’s too humid, turn the air conditioner to a lower temperature before you begin to bake. You can also use a fan to dry the air.
  2. Make sure to use your exhaust fans.
  3. Store ingredients in moisture proof containers with a good seal. For more extreme conditions, place the containers in the refrigerator or freezer.
  4. Reduce the moisture in your recipe slightly.
  5. Use the convection feature if your oven has one.
  6. Make sure there’s a vapor barrier over dirt basement floors.
  7. If conditions are often extreme, purchase and use a dehumidifier or humidifier or explore alternate heating and cooling systems.
  8. Don’t use the drying feature on your dishwasher. If you need more humidity, open the dryer door while it’s hot and the dishes are wet.
  9. You can also increase humidity by simmering pots of water on the stove or making soup.
  10. An indoor dryer vent will pump moisture (and heat) into your home.

If conditions are not extreme, go with the flow. Experience will help guide you to add baking time or increase liquid in the batter.

Enjoy the slightly altered density or moisture in a muffin or cake. Savor the differences in your experience of each food. As long as it’s not icky when it’s sticky, it’s all good!

Navigating a Loss of Taste and Smell

Navigating a Loss of Taste and Smell

Many people are currently navigating a loss of taste and smell. For some the cause is COVID-19. For others it may be chemotherapy or a different virus. I experienced such a loss following a virus a few years ago. It took almost a year for my sense of smell to return to mostly normal. I say mostly because I still encounter days when things seem just a little bit off. Although they’re now rare, it is still disconcerting when it happens.

For those of you who are not regaining these senses quickly, there are treatments available and one of those can be done at home. Olfactory training is a treatment used to encourage smell fibers to start working again. You can begin it at any time.

Choose items already in your home and smell them, slowly mastering each smell and then moving to another. I’d probably start with coffee, vinegar, vanilla, and oil of oregano. I might also bury my nose in the autumn scented candle I can’t get enough of. This process stimulates the olfactory nerve and hopefully encourages the body to create new neural pathways.

Don’t be alarmed if some things smell wrong or foul for quite some time. This is the symptom that lingers for me. Certain items sometimes smell spoiled when they’re not. For some people, everything may taste like bananas for a day. There’s really no predicting the exact experience. Just know, you’re not losing your mind.

And if not being able to taste is causing you to lose your appetite, there’s a new cookbook from Life Kitchen called Taste & Flavour. Those with a keen eye may have noticed the u in Flavour and already guessed that the chefs who developed these recipes live in the UK. But don’t worry about converting currency. The book can be downloaded for free.

The chefs consulted with scientists, researchers, and patients to create recipes that add sensory excitement. Part of that formula is to appeal to the eyes by using bright colors. They also use texture and foods like pineapple that stimulate the trigeminal nerve. Other foods like soy sauce and mushrooms are included to stimulate saliva and boost other flavors in a dish.

You may have to alter the way you cook for a while. Or you may find that your preferences have changed. Any changes bring an opportunity to explore a variety of new food combinations you might not have considered before.

For most, the senses of taste and smell will return eventually. Until they do, olfactory training and specialized recipes can help you navigate the twists and turns that come with an altered sense of perception. We may not have normal, but we’re continually gaining new resources and I love that!

Out of the Mouth of Babes, Snakes, and Scientists – Smell Begins With the Tongue

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Out of the Mouth of Babes, Snakes, and Scientists – Smell Begins With the Tongue

Sometimes a new idea comes out of the mouth of babes, snakes, and scientists. A study published last week online in advance of the print edition in Oxford Academic Chemical Senses finds that smell may begin with the tongue rather than the brain. One of the study’s authors, Mehmet Hakan Ozdener, MD, PhD, MPH, became intrigued with the idea when his adolescent son asked whether snakes stick their tongues out in order to smell.
tongue
A current model of taste and smell shows two genetically different receptor systems located in anatomically distinct locations that send signals to different targets. While the two are known to intertwine to form the perception of flavor, scientists thought that the first merger occurred in the insular cortex – a part of the cerebral cortex in the brain. The insulae are believed to play a role in functions that include perception, motor control, self-awareness, cognitive functioning and interpersonal experience.

The abstract of this new study states: “Here we report that olfactory receptors are functionally expressed in taste papillae…The results provide the first direct evidence of the presence of functional olfactory receptors in mammalian taste cells. Our results also demonstrate that the initial integration of gustatory and olfactory information may occur as early as the taste receptor cells.” (1) Other experiments confirm that smell and taste receptors may be found within the same cell.

There are 400 different types of functional human olfactory receptors and scientists do not know what molecules activate the vast majority of them. While fascinating, this study alone does not answer that question or have a practical application other than to advance knowledge that will lead to other studies.

That’s the beauty of science. It’s a living body of changing knowledge. One layer builds on another. The more we understand about how things work, the more options we have for enhancing our lives. It’s good to remind ourselves of that occasionally.

Believing science has become a battle cry among those who want to stand firm on what we currently know. There’s a danger in that because tomorrow we will know more and that may mean that what we know today is no longer supported by the evidence. It also makes science sound like a restrictive rule book. Who wants to learn a bunch of rules? Certainly not bright minds that can imagine big ideas.

Instead of believing science, I’d rather we love it! And while we’re loving it, let’s be curious. Curiosity leads to advancement. Questioning is good. Skepticism can play a valuable role. Allowing our understanding to shift and change does not threaten our way of life. It has the potential to vastly improve it.

But don’t take that from me, take it from the mouth of a scientist: “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein.

(1)https://academic.oup.com/chemse/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/chemse/bjz019/5470701?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190424083405.htm

https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/insular+cortex
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