One lick of your tongue and you know if it’s yucky or good. How does this little muscle in your mouth give you so much information?
The surface of your tongue is covered with thousands of tiny bumps. Near the base of these bumps are special cells called taste buds. Taste buds can detect four basic kinds of taste: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.
When you take a bite of food, the food spreads over you tongue. Taste buds detect chemicals in the food and send signals to your brain.
Your tongue isn’t the only thing sending messages to your brain about the food in your mouth. Your nose also gets into the act. When you smell something, nerves in your nose send messages to your brain. Your brain uses information from both your nose and your tongue to figure out what something tastes like. That’s why things may taste different to you when your nose is stuffy with a cold.
Not all creatures have taste buds in their mouths. Houseflies and mosquitoes have taste buds on their feet. They can taste something as soon as they land on it! In fact, you might be waving a pesky insect away from your food.
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"How do people taste food?" was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 2:47 am.