You can smell the intoxicating aromas of fast food restaurants seemingly a mile away. You hear the employee ask you what you would like to order before you bite into that juicy double bacon cheeseburger, savoring the flavor in between mouthfuls of fries. Mmmm, the taste of fat.
Our ability to sense the tastes that fall upon our tongues comes from the sensory organs, better known as taste buds, that are located on our tongue, the roof of our mouths and in the back of our throats.
When we describe food, we typically categorize them into four main taste groups: sweet, bitter, sour and salty. However, in recent years, scientists have added a fifth taste to the basic list called umani, also known as savory, a taste that describes the meaty flavor of glutamates.
Now scientists are suggesting that a sixth taste should be added—FAT.
And why not, since fat seems to be in most of the things we eat?
Sure fat releases flavor and has thermal properties in food, even having a specific texture, but it has not been linked to being a possible sense of taste. But a team of scientists from Deakin University assessed the criteria set that could potentially classify fat as a taste, finding that it does in fact make the cut.
"The evidence now is comprehensive and overwhelming enough to call fat a taste," said lead researcher Russell Keast.
According to the study published in the journal Flavour titled "Is Fat the Sixth Taste Primary? Evidence and Implications", the Australian scientists discovered that our taste buds can detect the presence of fatty acids, which is one of the criteria. It also has "perceptual independence" from the other five tastes, making it an entirely different taste compared to salty and umami, which are similar.
The research, which involved 500 volunteers over the course of several years, found that people who were overweight had to have more fat during the trials in order to identify it. The research could help those battle obesity since those who are sensitive to the taste of fat consume less of it.
"When we think about those foods that were put out in the '90s, low-fat foods that were often failures, maybe it's as simple as not understanding the role of fat," Keast said. "You just can't remove the fat from a food and replace the textural components and replace the flavour release and expect it to be successful because you haven't matched the taste component, which has all of these other physiological and psychological effects that will affect the liking and acceptance of the food."
Fat was first classified as a taste by Aristotle in 330 BC.
[PHOTO CREDIT: Keith McDuffee/Flickr]
