Human Senses 1. Smell and Taste (11 of 21)

Human Senses

Even though chillies can be painful we can learn to love them because they don't do any lasting harm.
And we get great pleasure from pushing ourselves right to the limit of what's bad for us.
What's interesting is that people if you ask people what's the hottest one they like?
It 's the one just below the one that they can't bear because it's too painful.
So they are pushing the limits.
7, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 stop.
So the ability to stuff burning hot chillies into our mouths is a powerful demonstration that we poises an adventurous sense of taste.
But what's remarkable about our sense of taste isn't just our ability to eat extreme foods.

It 's also the sheer range of what we eat - and the reason for that - actually has little to do with our taste buds.
It turns out that a lot of what we think of, as taste actually has nothing to do with our tongue.
Professor Linda Bartoshuk has a clever trick to show how much of a foods flavour is actually picked up by the nose.
l've got a substance and what l'm going to do is have you close your eyes so you don't see what it is and hold your nose.
l'm going to put something in your mouth.
And here it is.
Now close your mouth and what you want to do is tell me what you perceive?
Just a little bit of a, can't taste it at all.
But a burning sensation on my tongue.
Ok.
that's all all l can get.
Now when you let go of your nose you can tell me what it is.
Let go of your nose.
Ok.
Ha wow, cinnamon.
Exactly.
It 's hot, but somewhat like flower.
Chalky and sort of powdery.
Some kind of powder.
Oh it's chalky and hot.
It doesn't taste like anything.
Cinnamon.
Wow that's cinnamon.
Oh cinnamon.
Oh it's cinnamon.
Without their noses even these bright young students can't recognise one of the most common spices in the world.
oh that's pretty good.
But our sense of smell does far more than tell us about food.