WEBVTT - Taste and How it Works 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:07.480 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:16.319 from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.400 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:23.200 Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Put us together, and you've got 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.520 the podcast duo. That's huge in Dallas. Yeah, you've got 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.560 a lot more than that. Yeah, that about four hundred 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:35.480 pounds of hairy goodness, slippery hairy goodness. Yeah, four hundred pounds, 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.040 and I'd say at least a hundred pounds of that 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.960 his hair. Yeah right. I wish if I could get 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:42.960 a haircut and would solve that problem in a shade. 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:44.760 You did get a haircut. We have the same haircut. 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.840 We're matching hair It's like, um, it's called the five guard. Yeah, 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.120 four guard? You go, is there a five? Yeah? I want? 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:52.879 I want, I go five, and I do a four 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:55.600 and then do a three on the sides. Just feather 0:00:55.640 --> 0:01:00.760 it up. You know, it's weird this conversations. Yes, uh 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.120 Umi says that she can smell a new haircut. You 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.600 know how you can smell a freshly cut long? She 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:08.240 says she can smell a new haircut, and I'm like, 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.080 no one else on the planet. Can we even looked 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.320 it up. There's no reference on the entire internets to 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.720 smelling of a new haircut. Right, maybe she's a super 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.600 taster smeller. I was going to say, I don't think 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:25.520 that that translates to taste chuck. But is that a segue? 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.440 I think that works kind of right? I mean, um, 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.600 consider this. You know when you've ever smelled something and 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:34.760 you're like, I know what that would taste like, but 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.039 it wouldn't taste like that, But you just you can 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.440 tell how something would taste for how you would imagine 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.039 it would taste. The reason it's so easy to imagine 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:47.800 that is that smell and taste are as similar as 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:52.000 any two senses are because they're both reactions to chemicals. Right, 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:57.800 olfactories smell gustatory. We'll probably say those words taste very nice. 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.160 And the types of there, they're different types of molecules 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.440 that react to different types of UM senses. Right, So 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.080 you have an odorant that we smell that reacts with 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:12.880 our our odor receptors, and then you have goostants or 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:18.440 taste its. Yes, I prefer tasting um that react with 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.080 the taste receptors on our tongue, right, right, But because 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.720 they're so close, you know, you really actually can't have 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.360 one without the other. Which if you've ever had, um, 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:32.400 you know, any industrial accident associated with chlorine, you'll know 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.120 that not only can you not smell any longer, you 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.760 can't taste any longer. Yeah, or that's why the tastes 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.280 weird when you have a cold. Like Patty and Selma, 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:42.960 they had an accident. I can't remember what happened, but 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.760 they everything tastes like cardboard to them. It was like 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.680 this offhanded thing they said in the Simpsons, but like 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.120 after it sunk in, I'm like, that's the most depressing 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:56.040 thing I've ever heard. They were big smokers too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.400 I guess that was my Patty and Selma. Uh, since 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.120 you mentioned it, we should go ahead and point a 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.760 little factoid here that worms and other invertebrates actually there's 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.760 no distinction between taste and smell. Yeah. They're like, why 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:08.760 why put any kind of division up. We're just gonna 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.080 call all one thing. But my head looks like my butt, 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.960 so what's the difference, right? They distinguished between volatile and 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.880 non volatile organic compounds, right, which means that if you 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.720 paint a room and put a worm in it, it 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.160 knows that you just painted that room, right, or if 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.840 you got your hair cut right perhaps, Yeah, uh so, 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.840 I guess we should talk about these uh g r 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.480 c s, gustatory receptor cells, taste buds. That's kind of 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.160 where it all happens, it is, and you know, the 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.640 taste buds are a little Oh, I guess they're part 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:42.880 of the little bumps on your tongue. But yeah, it's 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.200 actually under that. Yeah, well how that works. It's wrapped 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:47.680 up in a package, right. Yeah. It looks like a 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:49.880 little spring onion, like the butt of a spring onion, 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.440 or radish looks like a radish it does, or beat 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.120 It looks like one of those maybe even a weird 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.000 gar like or you know what it looks like here 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.240 looks like a hot air balloon. It looks like one 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:08.200 of those boxing Yes, nice, chuck um. Within this little 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:14.160 what's called papilla papilla Yeah, um, I don't think you're 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.320 supposed to say it like that. Within that, there's fifty 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.240 taste receptors and they're generally specialized taste receptors, right, and 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:23.480 they're gonna be the same kind of taste receptor in 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:28.040 every peppie, right, um. And so you've got fifty of 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.800 those some basil cells which are skin cells. They produced 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.200 skin cells, right, Yeah, not basil is in the plant. 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:36.479 That would be great. If they had basil that lived 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:38.760 in my tongue at all time, you would be turned one. 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.800 Remember that's right. It's as for men, yes, just for 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:48.480 men gel Um. Great if you're actually sponsored by things 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:49.960 and we just worked them in like that. Yeah, it's 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.400 called product place, right, what do we do on that? Um? 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.120 So you have about fifty receptors in this little peppie 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:00.000 lace and basil cells, and um, you have a little 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.800 each each receptor cell has a little hair sticking out 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:07.200 of it. Yeah, gustatory hair. Right. It's not Italian though now, 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.320 but all of it does sound in town. That's from 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.400 what I gather from this photo rendition, is that that 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.360 is what you actually see poking up on your tongue. Right. 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.280 The little round thing is actually the little goostatory hairs, 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:21.200 isn't it. That's what it looks like. It's coming out 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.920 of the top of the speed bag, and they come 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.080 out of taste pores. And it's the goose story hair 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.520 where all the actions taking place. Right, Yeah, that's where 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.840 flavor and take well this or taste starts. Say you 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.960 put a bite of steak in your mouth, right, so 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:41.280 the the um, the saliva is breaking down the meat. 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.159 It's the first step in breaking it down, and it's 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:49.720 breaking it into these little molecules called tasteins or gustin, yes, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:54.520 depending on your preference and um. These molecules bind to 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.559 the saliva, are taken across the tongue, and they stick 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.800 to the receptors that are generally uh designed to if 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.719 you believe in intelligent design, designed to um create the 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.640 sensation that we call taste, or they just happened to 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.599 match up. If you don't believe in intelligence, right exactly, 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:17.200 good luck. And Chucker's taste is much different from flavor, 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.839 isn't it. Let's define taste and flavor because this is 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.240 a big This is a big thing. Yeah, flavor. I 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.279 think Sarah Dowdy actually have stuff you missed in history class. 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.279 Fine podcasts. She wrote this and the way she put it, 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:30.960 which I thought was great, was flavor is it's sort 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.040 of like a full body. And we'll get into actually 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.520 that stuff later with the gut cells. But flavor is 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:40.440 a whole body experience. It's um, all your senses, including smell, 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:45.520 obviously tactile, and she said that with spicy food, pain 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.239 is factored in. Is one of the aspects of flavor. Yeah, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.800 I love that. So taste is this this taste in 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:56.640 molecule wrapped up in your saliva, smacking against augustatory hair. Yeah, 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.280 it's it sends a transmission to your brain, right, and 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:05.760 your brain encodes it and says mommy right. Or salty. 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.320 There's different voices for each taste, as I'm sure you 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.320 know already. Um, don't ask me to do sour, but 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.960 that's just the we will later. That's just the taste. 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:21.040 The flavor is that the pressure that the steak puts 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.880 on your tongue, um, the the the TecTile sensation of 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.440 you know, the kind of ends of the meat. You 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:31.360 know what I'm saying, it's just kind of dancing across 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.680 your tongue or if you like your steak rare, medium rare, 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:39.280 like I do that, just that lump of like warmish, 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.679 bloody flesh, right, yeah, And then like you said, pain 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.040 to all of our vegetarian fans, just turned off. Just 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.280 are so disgusted right now. But that whole sensation is flavoring. 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:51.680 All these different sensations are going to the brain, and 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.360 the brains like steak. Yeah, you know what I want 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.520 to know. And actually just thought of this. What is 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:58.679 the deal when you like, eat a piece of cheese. 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.000 Someone will tell me that, I'm sure like you get 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.000 a piece of sharp cheddar and it feels like your 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:07.720 jaw locks up. Do you ever have that with certain flavors? No, really, 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:12.120 your jaw lot, I know, with like really dill sour flavor. 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.320 I'm like, no, I'm talking about Jerry, have you ever 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:20.400 had that cheese? Jerry's asleep, Like, I'll put a piece 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.880 of cheddar in my mouth and my my jaw just 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:27.280 like clinches, like noticeably clinches. I have no idea what 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.800 you're talking about. Jerry just said, yes, Jerry doesn't know 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.480 what we're talking about at all. Well that maybe you know. 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:34.679 We're gonna talk about super tasters in a minute. There 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.200 are different types of tasters. We found out it's not 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:39.120 the same for everyone, So maybe that's one of my 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.880 you know, my kinds, right, And here's a little spoiler 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.959 about super tasters. The key to supertasters. They have more 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:53.240 taste buds. It's huge boring alright, so chuck, um, there are, 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:58.920 of course, what every school kid knows, our primary tastes, right, yeah, sweet, salty, sour, bitter. 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.920 Right back in our day, that was it. That's all 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.240 the taste you'd get, right, sunny, yeah, and um what 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:10.040 was it? Salt, sweet, sour, bitter? Yeah, right, and then um, 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:14.120 what's funny? In the Western world, For a good century 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:19.400 after a fifth taste was discovered, we still stuck to 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.600 these four and didn't recognize that there was a fifth 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:27.600 one Americans because the researcher was Japanese and his work 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.520 was never translated to English. So in about nineteen d 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:37.760 nineteen o one, um a Japanese researcher named kikun Ikeda Yeah, 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:43.160 thank you aka Akita Akeda. Yeah. In the early nineteen 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.480 hundreds he discovered um something called umami, which means a 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:50.520 delicious savory taste in Japanese, right right. What he was 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.720 doing was he was he was cooking some of that 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.960 Japanese seaweed that we both love, and he was like, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.720 you know what, this is neither sweet, salty, bitter or 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.120 so or so he started researching it, and he found 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:07.280 out that he isolated the glutamic acid and found out 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.120 that it had his own good statory receptor. So he 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:11.120 was like, this is legit, and he said it in 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.640 Japanese is the problem, right, yeah, And everybody was like, 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:18.280 what that guy just say, mommy, let's go back to 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:22.520 the World's Fair in St. Louis right, that's my scream. Um. 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.600 So one of the reasons also that it was never 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.319 really investigated over here is ou mommy is much more 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:31.480 of a flavor that is in Japanese dishes, like you said, 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:35.839 seaweed huge, but also over here we have tomatoes and 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.600 new mommy flavor meat meat savory, sure, right um. And 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.240 uh Kada's research was backed up in the West in 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:49.440 nineteen five later, yeah, when some researchers started to try 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:54.160 to isolate the taste for monosodium glutamate. And remember oummi 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:59.680 is uh glutamic acid, right, yes, so glutamate glutamic acid. 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:02.400 So they're trying to isolate the flavor of MSG, which 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.320 is a pretty distinct savory flavor, and they found that 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:10.800 no combination of the primary taste bitter sweet, salty sour 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.840 could replicate MSG. I wonder how they did that. I 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.040 don't know. There's a lot going on in flavor science 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:21.240 that it is fascinating huge, yes, but it's yeah, I'm curious, 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.720 but they basically yeah, you're right, they came away with nothing. 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.200 All the combinations. They can't account for MSG and it's 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:31.840 magical properties a flavor and calories and uh, it's supposed 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:33.800 to like make you feel full or something, you know 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.520 what they say. I don't know with MSG. Yeah, I 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:39.200 thought that was the deal with or maybe that was 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.160 just an urban legend people like, you know, Chinese food. 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.920 MSG makes you feel awful. No, it makes you feel sick. 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:48.320 It's called Chinese restaurant syndrome. That's Chinese restaurant syndrome. I 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.360 know with me if I eat MSG, Um, it's uh 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:53.920 it feels like a clause grabbing the top of my 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:58.120 stomach hurt so bad. Um, yeah, it's it's a lot 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.360 of people are allergic to MSG. And of course Chinese 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:04.200 restaurants were famous for they I don't think so, and 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.120 most most restaurants actually advertised whether or not use it. Well, 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.160 they advertise that they don't use that. They don't advertise 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.920 like with MSG is a bad thing. Sure, but remember 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.800 we got a listener mail in once from somebody whose 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.160 family owned a bunch of Chinese restaurants and was like, 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.120 you guys talk about Chinese restaurants center and because MSG 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.360 is found in like snack chips or you know, and 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.200 we get all the blame right, and it's just it's 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.640 not just Chinese restaurants, and a lot of Chinese restaurants 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:33.120 have stopped using MSG. So there you go, listener. We 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.920 satisfied that two year old listener mail just we finally 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:37.640 get around to it. And did you hear what a 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.160 pro I was. I didn't cite the snack chip that 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.599 he used as an example. That's how good we're getting. Wow. Yeah, 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:47.840 my mind is blown right now too. So UM, like 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.080 you said in two thousand two, actually is when Akita's 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.959 study was finally translated into English. So many years even 0:12:54.960 --> 0:13:01.280 after oh so from that point New Mommi um was 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:05.360 accepted as an as the official fifth taste and then 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.280 but think about it, so that's like a century because 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.160 the taste map, which we'll talk about the tongue map, 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.640 that was established in nineteen one about the time that 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.200 Kata was coming up with the umami. But it was 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:22.520 this that sweet, sour, salty, bitter right. Um, So for 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.760 a century the taste map didn't change, and then in 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.360 two thousand two, U mom is accepted in the West finally, right, 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:32.680 and then it seems like the floodgates open, right all 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:34.600 of a sudden, like they're like, well, wait a minute, 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.040 if there's a fifth taste, maybe we haven't been paying 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:42.000 enough attention. Like fat is apparently now the sixth primary taste, right, 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.280 leave it to the French. Um. There are new studies 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:48.680 now Joshure's that says that, well, they they think they've 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.120 identified fat as its own thing, like humans have a 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.120 taste for fat, and that the funny thing I thought, 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.760 if you have a high sensitivity to that taste, you 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.800 eat less fatty foods. You know, chuck. That is I think, Um, really, 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.480 that's something that's going to become what gets taste research. 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:08.200 It's funding is obesity and diabetes and stuff, because what 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.160 they found is people who are when you're talking about 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:15.600 super tasters, supertasters who taste sweet things, tend to eat 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.880 less um tasters who a lot of people don't really 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.040 detect the fat as much people who do have less 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.640 body fat. You said, the lower body mass index. Yeah. Um, 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.000 so you don't eat the foods that you taste the most. Yeah, 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.120 that's interesting, it's very interesting. Yeah, they did. The lady 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.560 did the one study on supertasters, and I think she 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:38.320 found that women in their forties at least, I guess 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.040 that was her set was they were uh, they gained 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.480 less weight or they were you know, slimmer, right than 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:48.120 non supertasters. But she didn't because they were eating less 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:49.800 of it. Yeah, but she didn't find it in men, 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.240 which I thought was odd. I guess men are just 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:56.000 like we just shovel whatever. Bring it on. Yeah, it's like, oh, 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:57.880 you want me to lose some weight, watch, I'll just 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.520 drink water for a day and there's fit you pounds 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:05.520 should right, So chuck now it's two and if you 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:07.520 stick out your tongue, please stick out your tongue. Chuck. 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:09.400 You know I bit my tongue almost all the way 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.800 off when I was a kid. Oh I see that. Wow, 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:16.520 it's like Frankenstein's tongue. So all right, chuck, stick out 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.200 your tongue please. Still. Yeah. Um, so we've got you, mommy. 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:28.120 We've got sweet, sour, bitter, salty, fatty yeah yeah, and uh, 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:30.040 a lot of it looks like the that's a pretty 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:35.200 fat tongue, chuck, it's not thick. This is worse than 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:40.120 the beat poop. I like the beat boop um. And 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.320 we also have what they've recently discovered that we actually 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:48.840 have specialized receptor cells that detect carbon dioxide. Yeah, well, 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:50.640 should we finish the tongue map real quick at least? 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.280 And why it's bunk? Sure? Uh, because you were pointing, 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.000 but people can't see you point, Josh. So the classic 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.200 tongue map says that bitters in the back, sour was 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.800 on the side, salty is on the front edge, sweet 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.800 is on the tip, and umami they're throwing on the 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:09.560 posterior and saying that that's where that is. Yeah, they're 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:14.560 like that that real estates open. That's but they're fine. 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.520 They've they've also found that um that there's fat somewhere 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:20.960 has to go in there somewhere, right, Yeah, do they 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.560 know where that is yet? I still knew. Yeah, it's 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:25.800 too new from what I understand, right, but I think 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.840 it's it's not just it's I think it's going to 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.080 take the the the tongue map away. That's going to 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.560 be done away with because there are primary tastes, certainly, 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.080 but they're finding that, you know, the whole tongue map 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:42.400 when it was invented in nineteen o one, Yeah, a 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:46.960 German researcher. Basically what he did was to say areas 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.640 of low sensitivity were depicted like there was no sensitivity, 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.560 like there's those lines that like there's actual borders. And yes, 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.800 maybe this area of the tongue is higher in recept 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.600 yourselves for umami or sweet or bitter, but that doesn't 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.400 mean that it's not found elsewhere on the tongue as well, 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.280 and so a lot of tastes are a mixture of 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.920 all these. Number one, well sure, and all he did 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.840 was interview people, which I thought was odd. Yeah, his 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:16.440 research was backed up in nineteen seventy four by Virginia Callings, Right, well, 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.280 sort of backed up and sort of not well, it 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.600 was kind of like revised. I guess it's like, yes, 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.480 his he was right and saying like this area is 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.960 highing sweet receptors than this area, So you could conceivably 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.040 put a tongue map, but maybe it was just kind 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.760 of pushed the wrong way and that um and overlap. Yeah, 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:34.840 Callings was the one who was saying like, this is 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.480 a lot there's a lot of interplay going on, including 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.520 CEO two. Let's get back. Can we talk about now 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.240 is the time? That's pretty cool. I mean you sent 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.040 me this over the emails a couple of days ago 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.400 and said, dude, you you tapped me on the head 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.320 and said, dude, you know that bubbly stuff. You think 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.760 that's that's what's making that taste in your mouth? And 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.240 it's not. No. Actually, there we have a gene that 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:03.440 UM expresses an zyme that's meant to detect carbon dioxide 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:05.720 in the bloodstream, right, so we can break it down 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:11.560 into useful forms UM, and they've for forever. Basically we 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:13.960 thought that anytime we drank a carbonated drink, it was 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:15.680 a popping in the little bubbles on our tongue that 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.200 created that sensation. Not so fast. They put people in 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:25.200 a pressurized chamber, hyperbaric chamber, right, given them soda that yeah, 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.080 has no bubbles present, and people could still detect the 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:32.479 carbon dioxide taste. So there's yet another taste. There's no 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:34.760 place on the tongue man for carbon dioxide, and yet 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:38.040 there's specialized receptor cells for detecting it. Right, yeah, Well, 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.479 because they like everything else, they said, this is interesting. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.919 Let's get some mice and genetically uh make them different 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.320 and weird and test them out. And they did that 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.399 and they found it was the same receptor as sour. Right, yes, 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.760 what they um the sour receptor basically doubles as uh 0:18:56.080 --> 0:19:00.000 CO two detector as well. They removed that in mice. Yeah, um. 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.080 And also they put a sensor into one of their nerves, 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:05.560 which is pretty interesting in and of itself that we 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.520 can do that. So those those combinations, those series of 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.960 studies um led to this discovery that we have uh 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.360 c O two detectors. And what an important discovery that 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.640 that is? Right, and Chuck, it is is it? I think? 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:22.760 So what does it mean? Well, that's the whole thing. 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.159 It leads you to the question, Chuck, why do we 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:29.000 have taste? Anyway? There's one obvious answer is that, um, 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:33.600 we are we learned to eat by deriving pleasure from it, 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.040 and we associate some taste with their pleasurable right. Well yeah, 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.119 but early man, it was a lot of times like 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:43.359 warning systems. Well this is the less obvious answer, right yeah, 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.160 Like if they ate something sweet, they're like appealed to them. 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:48.080 It's you know, it gives them a lot of calories, 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.000 and so that's a good thing. If they tasted something 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.480 really bitter, it might be poisonous, so you should spit 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.760 that out right. Sour could be spoiled something more. It 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.560 could be you know, a sweet and sour candy, which 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:03.080 is yummy, right, right. And and with early man we 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.800 had yet to figure out a way to encode ideas 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.480 and warnings about like not to eat something to you know, 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:12.679 the written word um, So we had to use our 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.440 taste senses on our own. And we still That's what's 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.240 so cool. That's why I love evolution all these years later. 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.280 That's why we're still attracted to sweet things because that 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:26.360 was survival. It gave you calories to live, basically food energy. Right. 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.800 But we have also gotten to the point where we are, 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:34.800 you could say, a reasonably fat society here in the US. 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.760 And you mix that together with health consciousness or self 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:43.320 consciousness especially, and all of a sudden you have artificial sweeteners, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.080 which you would think is good for your body. But 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.960 they found that there's a correlation between U seeing um, 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:55.080 artificial sweeteners and type two diabetes, right, And they figured 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.280 out through this investigation, they figured out that there are 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.919 tastes cells elsewhere in the body. It's not just the tongue. 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.120 And we're getting this idea that not only our tastes, um, 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.159 they're more primary tastes than we realized. Tastes are interplace 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:13.680 of of different um receptor cells, and there's taste cells 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.440 elsewhere in the body, in the guts specifically, but also 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.960 probably in the pancreas, in um, the liver, in other areas. 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:24.679 So these tasting these molecules that are bounds alive and 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.000 they enter the gut, they start sending out other signals 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.919 rather than meady right, like what we were saying that 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:36.320 the like a bitter taste might be something poisonous. Sometimes 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:38.840 you'll eat something poisonous and it gets past the old 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.560 tongue and you swallow it, and that's when the guts 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:44.040 taste cells kick in, and that's why you might like 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:49.760 it might spur vomiting. It triggers your vomiting reaction. Thank god. Yeah. UM, 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.520 that's one way with the type two diabetes. Uh. With 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:58.560 the sweet receptors in the gut are signaled by something sweet, 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.680 they tell the blood to start absorbing insulin. Right, they start, 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:08.600 they tell the surrounding cells to start absorbing insulin. Glue coast, 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:13.000 I'm sorry, burn for energy, So insulin which actually chuck you. 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:15.480 Remember we've talked about before, and I think whenever we 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:18.520 talked about longevity, insulins like the worst thing for your body. 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.880 But we use it to go into cells, to basically 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.240 open the cells, so gluecoast can go be burned, um 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.440 and you. But if the glue coast doesn't arrive, if 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:32.240 there's no sugar eaten and it's just an artificial sweetener, 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.399 that signal is still triggered. The insulince still goes and 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.679 jams open your cells, but nothing gets burned, and the 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:41.600 insulin levels go up, and you have type two diabetes. 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.040 So that's the tie between drinking like a diet soda, 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:47.240