Why is taste important?

Exploring the taste of different foods helps us to decide which foods we like or dislike.

Certain foods can have different flavours and textures when they are raw to when they are cooked.

For example, carrots are hard and crunchy when they are raw and they tend to be softer and sweeter when they are cooked.

Taste and smell can also help us to detect if something is safe to eat. Some food or drink can taste more sour or bitter if it is too old to eat or drink.

Watch this video to learn more about how a chef uses their knowledge of taste and flavours to make a healthy dish.

Chefs prepare and cook food to try and meet the needs of different customers.

Choosing the right combination of flavours is important so the customer enjoys their food.

To do this, the chef would need to consider factors like:

• the quantities of ingredients.
• the balance of different food groups.
• the different textures of foods.
• whether the dish is healthy.
• whether the dish looks appealing.

There are five basic tastes we can detect with our tongue. These are:

• sweet: like with bananas, honey and strawberries.
• salty: like with crackers, breadsticks and bacon.
• bitter: like with grapefruit, dark chocolate and coffee.
• sour: like with rhubarb, vinegar and lemons.
• umami: like with mushrooms, soy sauce and some cheeses.

When we taste food, we use a combination of our senses. The five senses are taste, smell, sight, hearing and touch.

When eating food, the tongue and nose work together to help us to recognise flavours and determine how the dish tastes.

Look at this slideshow to find out how our senses can help us explore food.

Our sense of smell is powerful when it comes to tasting food. We use our sense of smell to identify around 80 per cent of the food we taste.

Sometimes if you have a cold or feel unwell, you might lose your sense of smell and it can be hard to taste food.

You can see how important your smell is by trying this experiment:

1. Find a small piece of food with lots of flavour. A leaf of a herb like mint, parsley or basil will work well.
2. Hold your nose with one hand.
3. Put the food in your mouth with the other hand.
4. Let go of your nose and find out what happens!

Another thing you may not know is that spicy isn’t a taste!

When you taste food that is spicy, this is actually using your sense of touch.

You might feel a hot or tingling sensation on your skin, lips, tongue and in your mouth.

Can you tell the difference between sweet and salty, or bitter and sour? Have a go at this quiz to find out.