TASTE BUDDIES: No Sugarcoating How Sweet Affects The Brain

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2022

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Our ancestors evolved the ability to taste the sweet goodness of foods like pastries and creamy chocolates. They were enticed to consume quick calories that might only be available sporadically. What does that mean today for our brains and bodies in a world where sugar is much more abundant? Host Aaron Scott talks to taste and smell researcher Paule Joseph about the sticky science of sugar and how we can have too much of a good thing.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:04.8	Alright, short flavors.
0:07.3	It is time for another episode of our Taste Buddy series, Sweet.
0:12.8	I was super excited about this episode, especially after finishing this sour episode that so
0:18.9	curdled my stomach until producer Berli McCoy told me I would once again be eating sour
0:26.4	foods which made me a bit confused and a little bit queasy.
0:32.1	Well you have vinegar, maybe you should try a little bit of that.
0:37.7	Oh, oh it's so sweet, holy moly.
0:43.4	It's like somebody dumped a cup of sugar into this vinegar, it's incredible.
0:49.9	So I think that means the berries are working.
0:52.8	This from the Taste Test I did with Taste and Smell researcher Polly Joseph and the berries
0:57.9	we're talking about are the reason that vinegar actually tasted sweet.
1:03.0	These miracle berries are what we call as taste modifiers.
1:08.0	In the presence of a low pH, they actually make it taste sweet.
1:14.7	These mostly tasteless berries come from a plant that grows in West Africa, sometimes
1:18.8	called Miracle Fruit.
1:20.3	You can order the berries online in a tablet form.
1:24.5	So we took the miracle berries, right?
1:27.0	So this caught in our tongue.
1:29.4	And the miracle in which is the protein that this berry has binds to this human sweet taste
1:36.7	receptors and when we eat things that are sour, it actually tastes sweet because it activates
1:44.3	the sweetness receptors.
	...

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