How the taste of food is influenced by our other senses
Have you ever found yourself wondering what is happening in the brain while we are eating? It turns out that flavour and taste among all things is one of the most multisensory experiences, and cognitive psychologists have been interested in this area for a very long time. Previous research has shown that multisensory integration of auditory, visual, olfactory and so many other sensory cues can be extended to explain flavour perception (Spence, 2010). This essay is going to examine a few of the many senses that contribute to the overall multisensory perception of taste, looking at previous research and studies conducted in this field in attempts to answer the big question of ‘how is the taste of food influenced by our other senses?’. The senses discussed in this essay include vision, by examining aspects such as how the appearance of what we eat can predetermine how we will perceive the taste and flavour. Smell, and exactly how and why the sense of smell affects multisensory perception of flavour. Sound, and how sound can impact on the overall experience someone has while eating and drinking, as well as why sound is an important sense when examining the overall multisensory perception of flavour. Finally, this essay will examine environmental contributions, looking at studies that have discovered the environment in which food and drink are served in play and how the role they play is important in controlling our view and
Thanksgiving is a holiday that comes with a great feast of very different and unique flavors. Imagine the mouthwatering meal, the zest of the ruby-red cranberry sauce, or the sweet scent of a pumpkin pie fresh out of the oven. When imagining tastes and smells sensory cues are often combined. The senses work together, but have you ever wondered how much the sense of taste influenced by other sensory information? If you pinch your nose you will taste less flavor? If the subjects nose is plugged and cannot smell, then can the subjects detect the flavors as well as those with unplugged noses.
When Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma was published, many readers began questioning him for advice on what they should eat in order to stay healthy. In his more recent book, In Defense of Food, he responds with three rules, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants"(Pollan 1). This seven word response seems too simple for a relatively complicated question, but as he further elaborates these rules into specific guidelines, this summary turns out to be surprisingly complete. Using inductive and deductive reasoning, he debunks the ideas behind nutritionism and food science, and proves that the western diet is the cause for food related diseases. Inductive reasoning is when a
There can be endless variety of tastes. All 5 basic tastes have different levels to them. The 5 basic tastes are based on various molecules. We can often taste the original flavors in the stuff we digest.
In previous studies, Frank and Byram’s article suggest that taste and smell interactions are dependent on taste and odor. In their experiments, they gave subjects strawberry
Tastes and smells are the perception of chemicals in the air. The close relationship with smell and taste helps people perceive the flavors of food. Anyone with a cold has experienced that moment where they can not perceive the flavors of food because their smell has been “impaired” due to a stuffy nose. Taste itself is focused chemicals that have sweet, salty, sour, bitter, or savory taste. “The sense of taste influences food
Wilson discussed a theory in which food memory, especially taste, is formed early in life. How ones unconscious memories attribute to what a person current likes and does not like, such memories are so
“Our food system is 21st century, but our government’s food-safety system is stuck in the 1900s.” (Bryan Walsh). This is a 21st century of new technology and better health care, but our food-safety system can’t get any better. Food safety is not as safe as it should be. This is one thing that should not be taken for granted. We are dealing with people’s lives and their health. Our government does not care how safe our food is. These meat packing companies and corporations get away from lack of food and safety inspections because people in our own government have worked for these companies. Even though these companies are main source of food, and because of the lack of concern for the food-safety system there needs to be stricter
Pretika Singh Dabney Lyons English 100/S 28 March 2018 Portfolio Cover Letter The drafting of my first essay on defining food was relatively stress free. The first thing I did for my essay was to create an outline which Professor Dabney reviewed in class. The article, Eat Food: Food Defined by Michael Pollan and The Pleasures of Eating by Wendell Berry from Food Matters Book edited by Holly Bauer, Omnivore’s Dilemma Book by Michael Pollan, and video In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, guided me with writing of my essay and gave me ideas on my topic sentences.
‘When you eat tasty food, there are two factors that make the experience pleasurable. There is the sensation of eating the food; what it tastes like (salty, sweet, umami, etc.), what it smells like, and how it feels in your mouth (known as orosensation) can be particularly important. Food companies will spend millions of dollars to discover the most satisfying level of crunch in a potato chip. Their scientists will test for the perfect amount of fizzle in a soda. These factors all combine to create the sensation that your brain associates with a particular food or drink. The second factor is the actual macronutrient makeup of the food — the blend of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that it contains. In the case of junk food, food manufacturers are looking for a perfect combination of salt, sugar, and fat that excites your brain and gets you coming back for more.’
People can not survive without consuming food which is a vital part of the human’s life; they get benefits from food which gives them strength and continues life. The demand increasing on food caused the growth of the number of the food industries who provide products for people. It’s common knowledge that the food industry is a business which seeks profits at first. According to the article “The Pleasures of Eating”, the author Wendell Berry who “is among the first public’s attention to industrialized farming and the ethical and environmental problems of our system of producing food”(36), says that the food industrialists persuade people to consume foods which are already processed, and “they will grow, deliver, and cook your food and beg you to eat ... Because they have found no profitable way to do so”(37). Wendell also claims that the food industry’s “overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price”(39). Nowadays, many food
Many concepts relevant to this topic are discussed in the article titled, “Decline in Taste and Odor Discrimination Abilities with Age, and Relationship between Gustation and
“Taste, like smell, is a doorman for the digestive tract, a chemical scan for the possible dangerous (bitter, sour) elements and desireable (salty, sweet) nutrients.” (46)
During the first week of class, four readings were assigned. One of the readings, “Food and Eating: Some Persisting Questions,” by Sidney Mintz, discusses the paradoxes of food. Although food seems like a straightforward concept, it is actually extremely complicated. According to Mintz, there are five paradoxes, including: the importance of food to one’s survival, yet we take it for granted, how people stick to their foodways, but are willing to change, whether the government should allow people to freely choose food or if they should protect the people through regulations, the difference in food meanings according to gender, and the morality of eating certain foods. All of these paradoxes give people questions to think about, making this an extremely philosophical look at food studies. It also mentions that food must be viewed through the cultural context that it is in, which became important in “The Old and New World Exchange”, by Mintz, and “Maize as a Culinary Mystery”, by Stanley Brandes. These discuss the diffusion of foods after 1492 in different ways. The Mintz reading gives an overview of all of the foods spread from the Americas to the Old World, and vice-a-versa, but does not go terribly in depth on the social changes and effects of specific foods. Brandes focuses on the cultural impact of specifically maize on the European diet, noticing that most Western Europeans shunned it. He studies the cultural implications of this, concluding that maize was not accepted
The human body is very unique and amazing. Everything that we do in our daily life has a process that our body goes through just to make these things happen. It is so many elements phases that our brain goes through for our body to smell or taste something. So let’s explore this journey of smell and taste.
The way we eat food has changed drastically in the past few decades. When I think of the process of how our food is made and produced, I typically think of a farm with animals laying around, eating grass, content with everything. Also, I picture ripe red tomatoes, apples, and sweet smelling fruit being pick right when it is ripened so it can get to our grocery stores. This is typically how most people picture our food coming from a farm. It is how they want us to picture it, because it is a happy image: but, it is far from the reality of how things are.