Can our tongue taste more than 4 flavors?

Hey Everyone! Today, I am going to tell you about the 5 most common flavors in food. This is a very different topic. But I hope that you like it.

Many people say that 'WE, HUMANS CAN ONLY TASTE 4 FLAVORS (i.e. sweet, bitter, sour & salty).'

But this is a myth.

Well, the 5th flavor that we can taste is 'Umami (meaty, savory taste)'

Do you know that every taste—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami—is a message that tells us something about what we put into our mouth, so we can decide whether it should be eaten.

Sweetness

Sweetness seems to be a marker for sugars, which gives the body fast energy, and carbohydrates, which replenish the energy stores in our body. From a nutrition point of view, both of these functions are extremely important for survival. Sugar gives the energy necessary for the fight or flight response in the presence of danger, and caloric intake prevents you from becoming malnourished, starving, and wasting away from diseases.

 

Saltiness(Sodium)

Sodium or say Salt plays a critical role in the health of any mammal, because it regulates ion and water homeostasis in the body. The fact that saltiness is enjoyed in small quantities, but not in large quantities, might be related to its role in the body—eating too much salt at once can be dangerous, so our body responds by rejecting extremely high salty solutions.

 

Sour

Sour tastes help us to detect the presence of acids in our foods, and like salt, it’s usually pleasurable in small quantities, but not pleasurable in large quantities. This is why sour tastes helps us to evaluate whether food is good or bad to eat. For example, when fruit is not yet ripe, it is full of citric and other acids, and therefore tastes too sour—so we don’t eat it. The same goes for the lactic acid in milk, which increases in concentration when the milk gets too old for consumption.

 

Bitterness

Strong bitterness is a marker for toxins (poisons), and we naturally reject them to protect ourselves from their harmful effects. But in small quantities, we learn as adults to like some small amounts of bitter compounds that have a positive effect in our body such as caffeine and other plant polyphenols.

 

Umami

Umami is believed to be a signal for one of the most important and fundamental parts of nutrition: protein, which is found in abundance in meat, eggs, milk, and various beans. For this reason, it’s reasonable to say that early man’s affinity for umami is closely connected to hunting, the mastering of fire, and cooking, which help to provide ample and easy-to-digest protein to an entire clan or tribe. And the connection between umami and protein isn’t all that surprising, when you consider that proteins are made up of amino acids. As one of the basic tastes, it’s easy to see how umami has helped humans as a species to survive for millions of years.

Thank You Everyone for reading this. I hope you got to know something new.