Some people love olives, others don’t like them at all. Some like mayonnaise, while others prefer ketchup with their fries. Some of your friends might not like your favorite food, even though you think it is delicious. Everyone has a different understanding of what tastes good and what doesn’t, but how can that be? How does tasting work and why do we all have a different idea of what tastes good and what doesn’t?
In general, taste buds are responsible for our taste in combination with the nose. We have so-called olfactory receptors inside the uppermost part of the nose which contain special cells that help us smell and they also influence the taste of food.
But now about taste buds. What are they and how do they work?
Taste buds are sensory organs that are on everyone’s tongue. You can even see them when looking in the mirror. All the small bumps that are on your tongue are called papillae, and they contain taste buds. They have very, very small hairs on them, which are very sensitive and called microvilli. Their hairs inform your brain about the flavor they sense, which is either sweet, sour, bitter, or salty. The taste buds get replaced by new ones about every two weeks. But as we age it doesn’t happen that regularly anymore and some don’t get replaced anymore at all. A person has on average about 10,000 taste buds while an older person may only have 5,000 working ones left. Additionally, smoking can also reduce the number of your taste buds.
This is also the first reason why food tastes different to everyone: The number of taste buds can vary and especially older people may not taste the food with the same intensity as you do.
What you know now is that the tongue is sensitive to four different tastes: sweet, sour, bitter and salty, but it is a little bit more complicated than that. The combination of the four categories is foundational, however, genes, environment, and a fifth taste (umami) are also involved in each one’s personal taste and that is also what makes us like different things.
Firstly, the DNA. Each person has their DNA that is different from everyone else. Exactly this also influences the way you taste and smell and tells your brain whether it has a good or a bad taste. This means already everyone’s personal DNA makes a difference in how we taste the flavors of food and how much we like it.
Other than that, it is also about how familiar you are with food and if you have eaten it before. If you grew up eating some kind of food on regular bases, you are more likely to think that it tastes good.
Moreover, your environment impacts how you feel about different food. If you are sick, for example, or you just ate food, your taste can change. You probably have found yourself in a mood before where you just didn’t fancy something sweet or greasy that day.
Another point is that our taste changes during our lifetime. It starts building before we are even born and as with a lot of things, it also depends on the mother. The first experiences with food flavors are from the food our mother eats while we are still in the womb. This influences childhood. As we age, our taste changes. You may even learn to like foods that were not good tasting before. By eating them over and over again it can conceal a bad memory with the specific taste.
This is also another thing: bad memories influence what we like or don’t like too. Such as you ate expired eggs once and it made you feel sick and now you can’t stand the taste of it anymore.
Then, there is also the fifth taste. It has been named umami in Japanese which means about the same as ‘wonderful taste’. You could describe it as brothy, full-bodied, meaty, and savory. Biochemical studies showed that there is a separate taste receptor that can detect this amino acid. It is a separate and distinct taste sensation, which probably evolved to ensure adequate consumption of protein. You can imagine this savory taste as chicken broth, Parmesan cheese or a ripe beefsteak tomato.
The five basic tastes make it possible for us to taste all the different flavors. In combination with the nose our taste buds are responsible for the flavor of strawberry, chocolate or lemon and thousands more. Just remember that your chocolate might not be the same as the chocolate of someone else. So never judge someone by the food they like because in the end, it is different for everyone and a matter of taste.
Sources:
https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/taste-buds.html (Nemours, 11.05.2023)
https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-some-people-find-some-foods-yummy-but-others-find-the-same-foods-yucky-77671 (Nicholas Archer, 10.05.2023)
https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/science-how-we-taste (Heather Hatfield, 10.05.2023)