Salt taste is surprisingly mysterious
Too much sodium is bad, but so is too little — no wonder the body has two sensing mechanisms
Stay updated with breaking news from Nick Ryba. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Too much sodium is bad, but so is too little — no wonder the body has two sensing mechanisms
We’ve all heard of the five tastes our tongues can detect — sweet, sour, bitter, savory-umami and salty. But the real number is actually six, because we have two separate salt-taste systems. One of them detects the attractive, relatively low levels of salt that make potato chips taste delicious. The other one registers high levels of salt — enough to make overly salted food offensive and deter overconsumption.Exactly how our taste buds sense the two kinds of saltiness is a mystery that’s taken some 40 years of scientific inquiry to unravel, and researchers haven’t solved all the deta...
Too much sodium is bad, but so is too little—no wonder the body has two sensing mechanisms.
"Would you like a biscotti?" AdventureMan says as he pops by my workshop, checking in. "Np, but thanks," I usually respond - I am less vulnerable to sweet than to salty, although neither are good for me, a diabetic. Even some fruits you would think are healthy are too sweet for me in more than…