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Taste—Gift of a Loving Creator

“IN THE realm of the [five] senses,” said Linda Bartoshuk, a leading taste researcher, “taste is queen.” Tasting is a delightful experience that protects us by helping us to distinguish what is acceptable from what is harmful.

The marvel of taste allows us to enjoy the sweetness of a fresh orange, the refreshing coolness of mint ice cream, the bracing bitter flavor of a morning cup of coffee, and the subtle seasoning of a chef’s secret sauce. Taste is so powerful that personality traits have been associated with it.

Perhaps you have identified some people as being sweet. On the other hand, you may have said someone else was a sourpuss. A person who harbors enmity toward another may be said to be bitter. The Bible, for example, speaks of “men bitter of soul,” and it also refers to “bitter speech.”—Judges 18:25; Psalm 64:3; 2 Samuel 17:8.

Taste and World History

Taste was a major factor in the voyages of discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries. About 500 years ago, Vasco da Gama sailed around the tip of Africa to India and back to Portugal, returning with a cargo of spices. For the next three centuries, European nations were plunged into conflict, as France, Great Britain, Holland, Portugal, and Spain competed for control of spice sources.

‘Why,’ you may wonder, ‘would nations fight and die over spices?’ To satisfy taste! Yes, the taste of Europeans for spices was that powerful. To this day modern industry, commerce, and science all cater to taste.

Just what is taste? And how does it work in concert with our other senses?

The Role of the Tongue

A key player in our sense of taste is the tongue. Most of our taste buds are located there, although some are found in other parts of the mouth and in the esophagus. Take a close look at your tongue in the mirror. Notice the numerous small projections that give your tongue a velvety feel. These are called papillae. Tiny taste buds cluster within the papillae on the tongue’s surface. “Each bud contains 100 or so taste cells,” says Science magazine, “which, when excited, trigger a nerve cell that carries the signal to the brain.”

The number of taste buds may vary greatly from person to person and thus affect taste. The human tongue may have as many as 10,000 taste buds or as few as 500. Inglis Miller, who studied the anatomy of taste buds, observed: “People who have more taste buds taste more; people with fewer taste buds taste less.”

How Taste Works

Taste is a highly complex sense. Strictly speaking, it is a matter of chemistry. Dissolved chemical components from food in our mouth stimulate taste receptors that project through the pores in our tongue. The receptor cells react and stimulate nerve cells (neurons) to send signals from the taste bud to the brain.

Amazingly, one taste bud can trigger many different neurons, and one neuron may receive messages from several taste buds. No one knows exactly how the taste receptors and their complicated system sort it all out. The Encyclopedia Americana says: “The sensations perceived in the brain evidently result from a complex coding of the electrical impulses transmitted by the receptor cells.”

Other senses are also involved in the sensation that we identify with taste. The New Book of Popular Science noted: “Sometimes one hardly knows whether one is tasting or smelling a substance.” For instance, we may pass a bakery shop and breathe in the aroma of freshly baked bread. Our mouth begins to water. And then if we enter the shop and see the bread and perhaps touch its crust, our senses are excited even more. We are anxious to take that first bite!

What, then, is this sense of taste? The magazine Omni explains: “What the layperson describes as taste is actually a tangled synthesis of a number of sensations: odor, taste, touch, texture, sight, chemical irritation (the burn of chili pepper, the cool of mint), and temperature.”

On the other hand, as the article continues, “taste . . . is quite simple. We differentiate four (and only four) taste qualities: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.” Although it has been popular to map the tongue into taste-sensitive areas, it is now believed that a single taste bud anywhere on the tongue can detect several or all of these four taste qualities.

Yet, there is still much that is unknown about the chemistry of taste. For example, it is not understood why adding a few drops of sour lemon juice will enhance the salty taste of food. And it is of interest that the taste qualities sweet, sour, and salty set off electrical signals in the taste cells, but bitter apparently causes these cells to produce a chemical message.

Acquiring a Taste

Likely, you have acquired a taste for things that you did not enjoy at first. This may be true of such items as olives, blue cheese, turnips, hot spices, and bitters. From early times “bitter greens,” such as endive and chicory, have added special flavor to meals and salads. But your taste needs to be educated to enjoy bitterness.—Exodus 12:8.

Studies suggest that acquiring a taste for a food has much to do with the circumstances under which you encounter the food. For example, one woman had never tasted bologna. Even the sight and smell of it were obnoxious to her because her mother had such an aversion to bologna. But one day when she was in her 20’s, this woman was very hungry and found nothing to eat except bologna. So she ate some and was amazed that she really liked the taste!

Therefore, if you would like to acquire a taste for something new, try it when you are truly hungry. And if you are a parent, remember that how you react to certain foods, as well as the circumstances under which you introduce them, can affect your children. Create a pleasant environment when introducing new foods. Involve your child. One writer suggested:

“During meal preparation keep your baby or toddler in the kitchen in a playpen or seat. He will be seeing and smelling the family foods in a happy, comfortable context—and learning about them even before he is old enough to eat them. A few months later you can hand him tidbits of what you are preparing, raw or partially cooked.”

She added: “It may take advance planning and extra time, but for an occasional meal find simple ways your child can help you fix a new or disliked dish. Encourage tasting during the preparation. Your helper will be happy and hungry when he tastes—perfect conditions for a successful introduction to the food.”

When Taste Goes Wrong

Sadly, the sense of taste may diminish with age, as King David’s aged friend Barzillai indicated when he said: “I am eighty years old today. . . . Could your servant taste what I ate and what I drank?” (2 Samuel 19:35) Other factors too may be involved in a diminished sense of taste or even a loss of it.

The problem may be the result of a head injury, an allergy, an infection, medical drugs, exposure to toxic chemicals, or even a simple head cold. The depth of despair of those without smell and taste was touchingly noted by one who suffered such a loss. She wrote: “We so take for granted the rich aroma of coffee and the sweet flavor of oranges that when we lose these senses, it is almost as if we have forgotten how to breathe.”

So-called phantom taste is a troublesome disorder in which a person constantly tastes something that is not present. Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy sometimes experience altered senses of taste and smell.

A God-Given Blessing

What a delight it is when our taste is keen! Many older ones recall with pleasure the tastes they enjoyed during youth—of ripe fruits picked from the tree or of specially prepared dishes. That our Creator desires us to enjoy such pleasures of taste can be seen from his promise of a banquet “of well-oiled dishes filled with marrow” in his righteous new world, when suffering, old age, and death will be no more.—Isaiah 25:6-9; Job 33:25; Revelation 21:3, 4.

Taste truly adds an enriching dimension to our lives. Without it, eating would be as dull as fueling an automobile. It is, indeed, a blessing from the all-wise and loving Creator!

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Teach your child to enjoy nutritious foods