TASTE BUDDIES: The Controversial World Of Taste Science

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2022

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Not much is known about why people experience tastes differently and why some people can detect certain tastes and not others. There also might be other tastes out there to add to the list beyond the five known ones now. In this finale to Short Wave's Taste Buddies series, we're tackling the science of the five tastes, and in this episode, we look at why there is so much more research to be done.

Host Aaron Scott talks to Danielle Reed from the Monell Chemical Senses Center about the controversy in taste science and about what other tastes might exist beyond sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami.

To listen to more episodes about how we taste, check out our Taste Buddies series: n.pr/3sSOgDB

Email the show at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:05.5	When Dr. Danielle Reed was a kid, she conducted her own little experiments with taste.
0:11.1	I was very attracted to anything with like the tiniest hint of sweetness and so I started
0:17.2	by pulling the tender end of a grass-shoot and putting that in my mouth and chewing on
0:21.8	it.
0:22.8	And it was sweet.
0:23.8	So she started plucking the buds off of bushes and popping flowers into her mouth.
0:28.0	And then of course I found the inevitable which is that most things were bitter, right?
0:31.8	And honestly I ended up feeling perhaps a little unwell afterwards and so that was a good
0:36.2	lesson for me.
0:37.8	So a little inadvertent botanist in training?
0:41.1	Yes, well it's certainly a taste scientist from the early days.
0:44.8	Today, Danielle Reed is the associate director at the Monal Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia
0:50.1	where she researches taste and smell.
0:52.8	In particular, she studies how people differ in their sense of taste and how genetics
0:57.6	might influence that.
0:59.2	One of the things I love to do is this classroom demonstration where I take out this little
1:03.4	vial of white liquid and I taste a little bit of it and to me it tastes just like water,
1:09.5	right?
1:10.5	Absolutely, totally fine.
1:11.9	But to some of the people that will sample it, it's insanely bitter.
1:16.5	Like it's, I hate you bitter.
	...

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