What causes things to taste? What is in some foods that aren’t I others that make them taste different?
In: Chemistry
Chemicals.
Your tongue (and the lining of your nose) are covered with special chemical receptors. We call the ones on your tongue “taste buds” and the ones in your nose “smell receptors”. They’re both triggered by specific chemicals or families of chemicals. For example, the ones that are triggered by surgars (glucose, fructose, etc.) convey the taste of “sweet” to our brain.
Different foods taste different because they contain different chemicals, and different mixtures of chemicals, so they set off a different set of nerves to different degrees. Our brains squash all that information back together into “taste”.
A few chemicals work on other nerves…the most well known is capsaicin, which sets off your heat detecting nerves. It’s the active ingredient in chili peppers. That’s what makes “spicy” foods “hot” even though they’re not any different temperature than the rest of your food.
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