We all love delicious foods, even if we know they may not be good for us. Foods high in energy—specifically sweet, salty, and fatty foods—tend to taste the best.
This is likely because our ancestors needed to seek out nutritious, high-energy foods when food sources were scarce. The drive to eat foods higher in energy may have allowed early humans to survive through periods of famine or harsh winters.
But today, in Western societies, delicious foods are abundant and people are consuming more energy than ever, leading to an obesity epidemic. Our taste system’s drive to eat more energy-dense foods than we need is part of the problem.So scientists are investigating whether we can change the way we taste foods to help control how much we eat.
The Six Tastes
Six taste qualities have been identified: sweet, salty, sour, umami (savory), fat, and bitter. A recent study has also provided evidence for starch taste being a seventh taste quality. Each quality detects different nutritional components in a food.
