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Smell and Food Smell has a profound effect on many aspects of our lives: the taste of our food, our emotions, even our sexual desire. But let's talk about food (one of Jolique's favorite subjects) for a moment. Our brain can recognize smells not only by sniffing them, but also when we are eating. As a matter of fact, the majority of what we taste is actually due to our sense of smell. As we chew, little odor molecules from our food travel up the back part of the mouth and into the olfactory epithelium where they are received by olfactory receptors and catalogued by our brains. The rhinencephalon is where the majority of our taste perception takes place. You may have heard that your tongue can taste four types of flavors: sweet, salty, sour and bitter, but did you know that this is basically all it can taste? In other words, if you have a cold and your ability to smell is reduced, you may be able to taste the sweetness of apple pie, but you may not be able to distinguish it from, say, the sweetness of cherry pie. Your tongue allows for distinction between foods that are sweet, salty, sour and bitter, but unless you have a sense of smell, the salty olive you pop in your mouth will not taste like an olive, it will just taste like salt. Scary, huh? It is not surprising then, that people with reduced senses of smell also suffer from a reduced appetite. Why eat if you can't enjoy what you're eating? For Jolique, whose appetite knows no bounds, a cold can have drastic consequences—food staples, such as Cheetos and gummi bears, are completely tasteless, and even homemade chicken soup just tastes like warm, flavorless water. |
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Above: Reduced olfactory acuity, brought on by a head cold, can have drastic gastronomical consequences. |
