heat isn’t a flavor, so why do we prefer food hot or cold?
In: Biology
Heat changes the food that we eat. The temperature can change the texture of many foods, sometimes quite drastically. Something like ice cream is a pretty extreme example, but many (probably most) foods have some noticeable texture changes as they’re warmed or cooled.
But also, much of our sense of taste is actually processed via our sense of smell. There are passages in your throat that connect to your nose, so food particles travel up there when you eat and your brain combines those smells with the signals from your tongue to produce the overall ‘flavors’ that you taste.
Anyways, at different temperatures, foods can release more or less of various compounds, so they can smell/taste differently depending on their temperature.
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