Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Laurina vogel Bomb Here. Think about salted caramel ice
Speaker 1: cream with chunks of pretzels in it, kettle corn melon
Speaker 1: wrapped with perscuto, or dates stuffed with cheese, or pineapple
Speaker 1: fried rice, or the classic combo French fries dipped in
Speaker 1: a milkshake. If you're like me, this is making you
Speaker 1: very hungry. The marriage of salty and sweet is one
Speaker 1: that feels like it shouldn't work, and for some people
Speaker 1: it doesn't, but for others, it magically and deliciously does.
Speaker 1: We can't get enough of it. Too much sugar is
Speaker 1: overly intense, and too much salt is rinse your mouth
Speaker 1: out puckering. But when you mix the two, the combination
Speaker 1: is heavenly. So what's the science behind this phenomenon? First,
Speaker 1: let's talk about how our sense of taste works. We
Speaker 1: have five primary types of taste receptors in our mouth
Speaker 1: and nose, sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory or umami. Umami,
Speaker 1: by the way, comes into our lexicon from Japanese. It
Speaker 1: was coined by the chemist who first isolated MSG or
Speaker 1: monosodium glutamate in nineteen oh eight. He wanted to sell
Speaker 1: MSG as a food supplement that could make bland but
Speaker 1: nutritious food more appealing, so he derived the word umami
Speaker 1: from a colloquial word for tasty. So yes, umami is
Speaker 1: a Japanese marketing term from the nineteen ox Anyway, a
Speaker 1: contrary to what you probably learned in elementary school, each
Speaker 1: taste bud on your tongue can sense all of these flavors,
Speaker 1: and other nerve endings around your mouth and nose can
Speaker 1: as well. Our bodies evolved with taste receptors for good reasons.
Speaker 1: We detect sweetness in order to help fuel our bodies
Speaker 1: with carbohydrates. We taste bitter to hypothetically protect our bodies
Speaker 1: from something potentially damaging, though lots of us decided that
Speaker 1: we dig the mild danger there, and we take salt
Speaker 1: to provide our bodies with a necessary nutrient. Now you've
Speaker 1: probably heard that you're supposed to watch your salt intakee
Speaker 1: and if you eat a lot of processed or pre
Speaker 1: made foods, you probably should. But the sodium in salt
Speaker 1: is necessary for a few of our bodily functions. It
Speaker 1: helps your cells and organs maintain their proper fluid balance.
Speaker 1: It's used in the contraction and relaxation of your muscles fibers,
Speaker 1: including you know your heart, and it transmits nerve impulses.
Speaker 1: You need some sodium in your diet, and since sodium
Speaker 1: molecules are fickle, the best way for us to get
Speaker 1: it is via salt. And salt isn't just a nutrient either,
Speaker 1: it's a flavor enhancer. So it stands to reason that
Speaker 1: if you mix sugar and salt, the salt will enhance
Speaker 1: the sugar flavor. A chef's and flavor scientists call this
Speaker 1: flavor layering, and the right mix, not too sweet not
Speaker 1: too salty, gives your brain a positive biological response. Part
Speaker 1: of this positive response can be chalked up to a
Speaker 1: set of experiences called sensory specific desire and sensory specific satiety. Okay,
Speaker 1: because humans are omnivores, and because there are a number
Speaker 1: of nutrients that our bodies need that we cannot make
Speaker 1: ourselves and thus need to consume through food, we are
Speaker 1: wired to desire a variety of foods and tastes. A
Speaker 1: meaning will eventually tire of the same taste over and
Speaker 1: over again. So if you gorge yourself with sweets, and
Speaker 1: only sweets, you'll stop wanting more after a while, and
Speaker 1: the same goes for salty, you'll satiate yourself on that flavor. Conversely,
Speaker 1: studies have shown that eating a bunch of sweet stuff
Speaker 1: can make you crave different flavors like salty or spicy,
Speaker 1: and eating a bunch of salty stuff can make you
Speaker 1: crave sour or sweet. So when you layer flavors, you're
Speaker 1: scratching more than one itch at once. Your brain is
Speaker 1: left us bored or overwhelmed by any single flavor, so
Speaker 1: the combination is more craveable. Food scientists use this in
Speaker 1: the creation of packaged snacks to make us want to
Speaker 1: keep eating. It works with textures too. Treats are nice,
Speaker 1: just watch your portion sizes. The positive side of this
Speaker 1: slightly sinister food design trick is that when you're done
Speaker 1: with a snack that involves a salty sweet flavor duo,
Speaker 1: you might be less tempted to reach for another different
Speaker 1: flavored food. Today's episode is based on the article why
Speaker 1: do sweet and salty taste so good together? On HowStuffWorks
Speaker 1: dot com, Written by Deborah Ronca, with additional material from
Speaker 1: my other podcast saver. Brain Stuff is production of by
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klang. But for more podcasts my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. M