Sense of Taste for Natural Health
Taste! It’s what makes food appeal to our senses, it’s what makes food satisfying. There used to be only four categories of taste – sweetness, saltiness, sourness, and bitterness. Recently a new taste has been added – umami – which we refer to as “savory.” I believe there is another one and that is “spicy.” It also used to be thought that your tongue was broken up into areas that identified the different tastes, as shown in the picture above. That is not so accepted these days, especially with these new taste definitions of savory and spicy.
In order for meals to be satisfying, I recommend that you include each one of these taste sensations. Examples of the different tastes are
Bitter: green olives, hops, coffee, cocoa, bitters (alkaloids on taste buds)
Sweet: sugar cube, honey (glucose on taste buds)
Sour: lemon, vinegar (protons on taste buds)
Salty: potato chips (sodium ions on taste buds)
Savory: steak, cheese, butter, soy sauce (glutamate on taste buds)
Once again, I recommend a little of each to satisfy at meals. Just like we should balance our meals to include vitamins, minerals, and fiber in order to create a naturally healthy diet, so should we vary the tastes of our meals to satisfying all of our cravings.
