Talk:Basic taste

I'm not trying to be facetious, but what about celery? That's a taste that seems completely unique to me. And so I guess one couldn't argue that it's a factor in other tastes, but now I'm curious as to what it is about celery that makes it taste the way it does.

My understanding is that only the basic tastes are sensed with the taste buds. Other tastes are really smells. I'm no chemist, but I remember reading somewhere that some smells (like chocolate) are associated with a single chemical, while others (like strawberry) are quite complicated. -- Janet Davis

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What we colloquially call the "taste" of a food is indeed a very complex mixture of taste, smell, and texture. With smell supressed, one generally can't tell the difference between an apple and a pear, for example. I don't know what it is about celery that you find unique, but you could do an experiment: find something that will puree to a similar texture (like lettuce ribs or jicama), and adjust the puree to have the same sugar content, acidity, and salt content as an equal amount of celery. (Celery should not jave significant glutamates or alkaloids, but I suppose you could adjust with MSG and parsley too). Clip your nose shut, close your eyes, and have someone randomly select one of the purees for you to taste and see if you can tell the difference. These are the kinds of experiments that led to what we now know about taste. --LDC

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And clipping your nose may not even be enough if you've a good sense of smell. The sinuses have intimate connection with the throat, and as foods are masticated, their essential oils and other aromatic molecules can easily reach their vapor point in the mouth, and backwash into anterior nasal cavity as they're swallowed.

At any rate, I argue that the Chinese classification of spicy as a distinct flavor is correct, along with mintiness, or as I've read, peppermint. The heat sensation caused by eating hot foods is caused by chemoreceptors in heat-sensitive nerves. These are chemically and neurologically distinct from the others in this article's list. If you're experiencing chemical heat on the tongue, who's to say that's not a taste?

Also, I distinctly recall peppermint being a flavor. This was high school biology, and though the diagram of the peppermint molecule slotting into its own chemoreceptor is pretty distinct in my mind, it was some time ago I may have forgotten something, or the material may now be obsolete. I'll do more research and come back to this page when I'm sure.

Also, there's a taste for PCBs, which is a recessive hereditary trait. Only a minority of the population can taste them (and it's very much a tongue taste: orderless to me, and very bitter).

--Clarknova 01:05, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Basic taste box

Does anyone find it funny that all of the basic tastes listed in the box at the bottom of the page redirect to here? And that there's only one article in the category Basic tastes? — Shoecream 07:52, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

I concur. I've removed the template from this page and listed both the template and the category for deletion. —Caesura 20:36, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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What is bitter detecting? From the article it is stated that:

• Sweet = Sugars
• Salty = Salt (NaCl)
• Sour = Acids
• Umami = Glutamates

What about bitter? Alkaloids are mentioned, but it is a bit vague compared to the other 'tastes'. Ashmoo 01:17, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

sour is acidic things and bitter alkaline things. So acids=sour and bases=bitter (this is just general I am not sure how far this goes, but it is the basic idea) say1988 02:23, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Say1988: That's not true, basicity has nothing whatsoever to do with bitterness. Sweet, bitter, and umami taste receptors can detect a wide range of chemically diverse compounds, simply because there are many different receptors for the same taste. Sweet can also detect many l-amino acids, even lead acetate, umami detects certain nucleotides in addition to glutamate, and bitter detects a broad range of compounds like certain d-amino acids, certain alkaloids like quinine and caffeine, as well as many non-alkaloid natural products. Cacycle 09:54, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Umami

Where would the umami taste buds be on a taste map of the tongue? It strikes me that no taste map that I've seen has the umami-sensitive area on it! Scorpionman 01:57, 4 May 2005 (UTC)