Flavor: A combination of Smell and Taste

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In class we are on the brink of exploring the sense of taste. I felt that a post on flavor would help us transition from smell to taste because it comes from a combination of both senses. In Dr. Rachel Herz's lecture I was most intrigued by her explanation about flavor. Dr. Herz first explained how we smell both through our nose and in a way also through our mouth. See image below
























Then she shared that since we can only taste sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami all of the other varieties of flavor we taste we owe to our sense of smell. She illustrated this very convincingly by having us plug our nose, put a different flavored jelly bean in our mouth, chew and taste the simple sweetness then unplug our nose to have the flavor of the bean rush in through the process of olfaction.

Before her lecture I would definitely have counted myself in the group of people that would opt to give up their sense of smell. However since I learned how important smell is to perceiving flavor I would never want to lose this sense! I love to cook and to eat and both of these activities would lose much of their vitality without a sense of smell.


 

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