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Why Everything You Taste Is a Trick - Video học tiếng Anh
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Why Everything You Taste Is a Trick
Why Everything You Taste Is a Trick
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0:00
- Thank you to AnyDesk for supporting PBS.
0:03
(chips crunching)
0:07
You're hearing the crunch as I eat these delicious chips.
0:11
But here's what I'm hearing
0:12
through my headphones when I take a bite.
0:15
(gloppy liquid sloshing)
0:17
This is the grossest experience of my life.
0:20
(gloppy liquid sloshing)
0:22
Oh, that was the worst chip I've ever eaten.
0:25
Nothing was wrong with it
0:26
except that I heard it make a gross sound
0:29
and that totally messed up its flavor.
0:31
But how can a sense like hearing
0:33
mess with how we perceive flavor?
0:35
Maybe you and I have been thinking about flavor all wrong
0:38
because it turns out it's way more complex
0:41
than just how something tastes and smells.
0:43
So what does flavor really mean?
0:45
How many senses does it actually involve,
0:48
and why is it so tied
0:50
to things like memories from childhood?
0:53
Today we're visiting a flavor manufacturer to meet one
0:55
of the world's top flavorists,
0:57
and I'm gonna fool my brain into smelling
1:00
and tasting things that aren't even there.
1:02
This is the science of flavor.
1:05
(light playful music)
1:10
We're at a flavor laboratory in Austin, Texas
1:13
to ask, what is flavor anyway?
1:17
I mean, there's smell, there's taste,
1:20
like, there's crunchiness.
1:22
It's like the feel of things like your memory
1:24
and like, I don't know.
1:25
So this is like the pro sports
1:27
of flavor right here. - Yeah.
1:29
- You're like in the NFL.
1:30
- There's less of us than pilots.
1:32
Let's test you and see how good your nose is.
1:36
We're gonna test some raw materials
1:38
and they're for our characterizes, for our flavors.
1:42
We have different notes that happen within a flavor,
1:46
but these are the ones
1:47
that are really going to drive it home what it is.
1:49
- So this is like the core fingerprints
1:51
of the flavor. - This is like-
1:52
- The identity.
1:53
- Quintessential. - Okay.
1:55
- First one.
1:58
- Wait.
1:59
Oh, this one I know.
2:01
- Okay. - This tastes like,
2:02
like baking almond extract.
2:04
- This is actually kind of a trick
2:07
because it can be used in almonds and cherries.
2:10
It's very, yeah- - As soon as she said that,
2:12
it's like maraschino cherries. - I saw that mind explosion.
2:13
It has like that artificial cherry notes.
2:16
- Those red cherries that go on top of ice cream.
2:18
- Yeah, the maraschino cherries.
2:19
- That's amazing.
2:20
How many people on Earth have your flavor certification?
2:25
- I am certified through the Society of Flavor Chemists.
2:27
There's about 500 of us.
2:29
You have to not only gain employment with a flavor house,
2:34
but they have to have a certified flavorist
2:36
who agrees to train you.
2:38
- You're just like studying
2:39
flavors all the time. - All the time
2:41
for seven years.
2:42
- Just smelling everything you can get your hands on.
2:45
- Yes.
2:45
- So you're now like a walking, talking
2:48
encyclopedia of flavor.
2:51
- I hope so.
2:52
Okay. You ready?
2:53
- I think so.
2:54
Famous last words. Okay.
2:56
(waves lapping)
2:59
This is very banana-y.
3:00
I'm getting a lot of, this is a tropical,
3:03
but I feel like there's a trick.
3:04
It can't just be banana, right?
3:05
- It is banana. - It is just banana?
3:06
- It is just banana. - Okay.
3:07
- And it's interesting that you said tropical
3:10
because it can go in tropical stuff too.
3:12
It's not just bananas.
3:13
- Even if it's not literally banana-flavored.
3:15
- It can be a secondary player for something else
3:18
and maybe not the primary.
3:20
And so it's just different amounts of paint
3:22
that you're using for your picture.
3:24
- Okay, we're moving to savory.
3:25
(liquid simmering)
3:28
This is a funky one.
3:29
Cooked vegetables, like soup base,
3:31
like carrots and celery and stuff.
3:33
- But kind of porky.
3:34
- I get the pork in there now that you say it.
3:36
- It's a tonkatsu ramen.
3:37
- How do you make something porky?
3:39
Like what?
3:40
What does porky even mean chemically?
3:42
- There's more paints.
3:44
And that's what this particular flavorist did
3:46
was build that realism that goes with it
3:50
to give you that illusion
3:53
that you're having tonkatsu ramen.
3:56
(light playful music)
3:57
- It's garlic, onion.
3:59
It's like french onion soup.
4:01
It's a brown note.
4:02
- You're learning.
4:03
- If this doesn't work out, you know.
4:05
- (laughs) And last one.
4:09
- Ooh, roast beef. - It is beef.
4:11
- After experiencing some truly mind-blowing flavors
4:14
in the lab,
4:15
I have to ask Lauren, what is a flavor anyway?
4:18
- Basically, a flavor is aroma materials in a solvent
4:22
that imparts aroma in taste with no nutritional value.
4:26
- But a lot of emotional value.
4:29
- There you go.
4:30
- When we taste something,
4:31
we're experiencing the molecules it's made of,
4:34
those aroma materials.
4:37
If the innate properties of molecules
4:39
were all there was to a flavor,
4:41
Lauren's job would be way easier.
4:43
But these molecules have to be perceived
4:45
by our weird, messy bodies.
4:49
And that makes things way more complicated.
4:51
You might not expect it,
4:53
but eating these chips
4:54
is gonna activate nearly every sensory system in my body.
4:58
Let's start with taste perception, also known as gustation.
5:03
(chip crunching)
5:06
The little bumps on our tongue called papillae,
5:08
each contain a bunch of taste buds.
5:10
Each taste bud is home to a cluster of receptor cells,
5:13
and each receptor cell responds to a different taste.
5:16
We have receptors for sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami,
5:21
and possibly even fat as well.
5:23
All these receptor types
5:24
are found in taste buds all over the tongue.
5:26
They are not arranged in distinct little regions
5:29
like that ubiquitous tongue taste map suggests.
5:33
I repeat, this map is a myth, it has been debunked.
5:37
Experts are literally begging us
5:39
to stop talking about the tongue taste map.
5:41
- Please stop talking about the tongue taste map.
5:44
- As I eat this chip,
5:45
I'm tasting some saltiness, savoriness, a little acidity.
5:49
Each of those receptors in my tongue is getting triggered
5:51
by a different chemical component in my food.
5:53
The salt receptors are responding to dissolved sodium ions,
5:56
the umami receptors to an amino acid called L-glutamate,
6:00
and the sour receptors to dissolved hydrogen ions,
6:03
basically the pH of the chip.
6:05
But just how good am I at tasting stuff like chips?
6:09
Well, there's actually a test for that.
6:10
- This is our next test to see if Joe's a super taster.
6:14
- I really want to be a super taster.
6:16
- You've been itching to know your whole life
6:18
if you're a super taster and now is the moment.
6:20
- I'm not gonna be disappointed if I'm not, okay?
6:22
The paper strip contains a bitter tasting chemical,
6:25
but different people have more or fewer receptors
6:27
in their tongue for that bitter chemical.
6:29
The strength of my reaction will tell me
6:31
if I'm a non-taster with no receptors for that chemical,
6:34
an average taster, or a super taster.
6:37
Okay, here it goes.
6:38
- Ready?
6:41
- Hmm-mm (mumbles).
6:42
- Is it super offensive?
6:43
- It's not good.
6:45
This is a great way to talk.
6:46
- I would say you're a moderate taster.
6:47
You can detect that it's there,
6:48
but you're not pulling it off of your tongue.
6:51
- If you were a super taster, it'd be like overpowering?
6:53
- So whenever I think about tasting this,
6:55
I get goosebumps because I hate it so much.
6:59
The fact that you can put it back on your tongue
7:01
is alarming. - Okay.
7:02
So I'm not a super taster.
7:04
- I don't think you're a super taster,
7:05
but you can taste well.
7:07
- Okay, but I'm not a non-taster.
7:09
- You're not a non-taster.
7:10
- Super tasters tongues
7:11
also have denser taste receptors than non-tasters.
7:14
In fact, individual variation in receptor density
7:17
is way higher for taste than for any other sense.
7:20
These little bumps on our tongue
7:22
have the power to make us experience the exact same food
7:25
completely differently from another person.
7:27
Whoa!
7:28
Does that mean that like my nacho cheese chip
7:32
is different from your nacho cheese chip?
7:34
(train steam hissing)
7:35
Now let's move on to smell perception,
7:37
also known as olfaction.
7:39
Now, who you think would win in a flavor fight?
7:42
Olfaction or gustation?
7:44
Well, let's do a little experiment.
7:45
I'm gonna try to tell the difference
7:47
between foods with similar textures
7:49
while blindfolded and holding my nose.
7:52
My olfaction will be completely cut off,
7:54
but my gustation will work just fine.
7:56
Which one should I go for first?
7:58
This one?
7:59
I think I'll do this one first.
8:00
(chip crunching)
8:01
Crunchy.
8:02
Literally just clunks, I have no taste.
8:05
Okay.
8:08
All I have is sweet.
8:10
There's nothing else happening.
8:12
Is this the third one?
8:16
This is also just crunchy and sweet.
8:18
Those are different?
8:19
'Cause they're just sweet and crunchy.
8:21
I don't know what this was.
8:23
This had no flavor at all. (blows raspberry)
8:25
These two, they're just sweet.
8:28
I think this is apple and this is pear.
8:31
I'm gonna reveal.
8:33
What?
8:34
This was apple? This was pear?
8:36
I would totally have guessed otherwise.
8:40
I was wrong.
8:41
So that test shows us olfaction
8:42
is the real hero of flavor perception.
8:45
It's the dominant sense over gustation.
8:48
So there are actually two types of olfaction.
8:50
If I sniff this chip
8:52
and perceive that distinct cheesiness,
8:54
that's orthonasal olfaction,
8:56
the scent particles are traveling up my nose.
8:59
But if I eat this chip and perceive its cheesiness,
9:02
that's retronasal olfaction.
9:04
The scent particles are traveling up
9:06
the back of my throat into my nose.
9:08
Retronasal olfaction is what's responsible
9:11
for most of flavor perception.
9:13
The destination of those scent particles
9:14
is the olfactory epithelium,
9:16
a patch of millions of olfactory receptor neurons
9:20
embedded in your nasal cavity.
9:22
One end of those receptors is exposed to air,
9:25
no other neurons in our body do this.
9:28
A scent molecule needs to be the right shape
9:30
to fit its corresponding receptor.
9:32
But that means we need so many different receptor types
9:35
to smell all the smells out there.
9:37
We actually have more genes for olfactory receptors
9:39
than any other type of gene in our genome.
9:42
We have about 350 receptor types that work in combination
9:46
to allow us to detect roughly 10,000 or so smells.
9:50
But about 1/2 of our olfactory receptor genes
9:53
are no longer functional,
9:54
meaning that our ancestors
9:56
could likely discern a much broader bouquet of scents.
9:59
Kinda makes you wonder,
10:00
what would Homo heidelbergensis have thought about these?
10:04
Probably would've loved them.
10:05
Once our olfactory receptor neurons fire,
10:07
they send signals to the olfactory bulb of the brain,
10:10
which is right about here-ish,
10:13
which then transmits them directly
10:14
to the olfactory cortex for processing,
10:16
which is right about, you know what?
10:20
Bring up the diagram.
10:21
After the olfactory cortex,
10:22
smell information goes to the amygdala,
10:24
a key brain region for processing emotions
10:26
and the hippocampus,
10:28
which is critical for processing memories.
10:30
This is a super different signaling pathway
10:32
than any of our other senses.
10:34
Taste, vision, hearing, and touch signals,
10:37
they all take completely different paths
10:38
before heading to memory processing.
10:40
Because flavor signals pass through those emotion
10:43
and memory centers of our brain
10:45
is precisely why flavor evokes such strong emotions
10:49
and memories compared to other senses.
10:52
Taste and smell are crucial to flavor, obviously,
10:55
but we can't ignore hearing,
10:57
which until recently was the forgotten sense
10:59
in flavor research.
11:00
These days, flavor scientists have come up with an equation
11:03
for the perfect bacon crunch in a BLT.
11:06
They've defined the ideal frequency ranges
11:09
for crispy and crunchy food noises.
11:11
It's these, by the way.
11:13
Scientists have even studied
11:14
how sounds impact our overall perception of flavor.
11:18
Like what happens if you hear a squish
11:21
while you're expecting a crunch.
11:22
But hearings influence on flavor
11:24
can be even more subtle than that.
11:26
In one study, participants rated chips
11:28
as being more stale if a lower frequency crunch
11:32
was played in their headphones while they ate it.
11:34
There are other flavor senses too.
11:37
There's also somatosensory perception,
11:39
which gives us a lot of information
11:41
about what we're putting in our mouths.
11:43
We're talking touch receptors that detect texture,
11:46
mouth feel, even fizziness.
11:48
Thermoreceptors that let us know
11:50
how hot or cold something is,
11:52
and pain receptors that can tell you how spicy a chip is.
11:56
The somatosensory system interacts
11:58
with our other senses to impact how we perceive flavor.
12:02
Sweet things feel more viscous.
12:04
Warm food tastes more flavorful.
12:07
Spiciness decreases our sensitivity to other flavors.
12:11
Finally, we also have to talk about vision.
12:14
It impacts our anticipation of food.
12:17
And this is important because that triggers
12:19
our autonomic nervous system,
12:21
which turns on our salivary glands to get ready to eat,
12:25
but it also impacts our perception of flavor
12:28
and scientists are having way too much fun
12:30
figuring that out.
12:31
They have served wrong-colored foods at dinner parties
12:34
and then watched all the guests all start to feel ill,
12:37
even though the food was totally fine.
12:39
They trick sommeliers into thinking white wines are reds
12:42
just by adding food coloring
12:44
and they mess with the lighting to turn food weird colors.
12:49
- Oops, sorry.
12:50
- And beyond our senses,
12:51
I mean, things like language and culture
12:53
can even influence flavor.
12:54
If you tell someone a certain smell is coming from cheese,
12:59
they'll have a different reaction to it
13:00
than if you say that smell is coming from sweaty feet,
13:03
even when it's the same smell molecules coming from each.
13:07
Studies of cultural impact
13:08
on flavor perception are fascinating.
13:11
In one example, American study participants
13:13
experience heightened almond olfaction
13:16
when holding a sugar solution in their mouth
13:19
while Japanese participants
13:20
experience heightened almond olfaction
13:22
when holding an umami MSG solution in their mouth.
13:25
Researchers think it's because
13:27
we have different cultural associations
13:29
about whether something like almond
13:31
should be sweet or savory.
13:32
So yeah, master flavorists have their work cut out for them.
13:37
They have to juggle our senses,
13:39
our very unpredictable interactions,
13:41
and their cultural and linguistic contexts
13:45
all to create a delicious perception in our brain.
13:49
Let's see how this all comes together in the lab.
13:52
When you're actually making a flavor,
13:55
what does it mean to make a well-balanced flavor
13:58
that's a good experience for somebody?
14:00
- A well-balanced flavor has to have a front,
14:03
a middle, and an end.
14:04
It's a story that has a great beginning,
14:07
gets your attention, has really great middle notes,
14:10
and finishes off with like a bang basically.
14:12
And that's what we're gonna do here.
14:13
- So these are like the individual components.
14:16
- Yes.
14:17
And then at the end of this,
14:18
you can tell me what you think the flavor we built is.
14:21
Okay, so this is the first one.
14:24
This is an ester.
14:25
- Yeah, it's like a sharp, like it's a chemical fruitiness.
14:28
- Different chemical classes have different weights,
14:32
different makeups
14:33
that allow it to come across in different times.
14:36
So an ester is gonna come in the beginning.
14:38
This is a lactone.
14:40
So this is heavier.
14:42
- It is, is earthier.
14:44
Yeah, it's like lower.
14:45
It's like a base note.
14:47
- A lactone usually is creamy, fruity.
14:50
- Creamy, I get that, yeah.
14:52
And then those two together,
14:53
that's yeah, you can tell, like, one,
14:54
yeah, it's hitting in different parts of my skull.
14:56
This is so fun!
14:57
Okay, hit me with the next one.
14:59
- This is an alcohol.
15:01
So this is gonna be one of our front guys as well.
15:04
- Oh yeah, very alcoholic.
15:06
Woo!
15:07
It's not quite what mowing the lawn smells like,
15:09
but it's definitely that like wet,
15:11
like, crushed up like leaves grassy kind of thing.
15:14
- So the green will add some unripened notes.
15:17
- Unripened, I like that.
15:18
I'm glad you're here to give the good words.
15:21
- No, you're doing a really great job.
15:22
Okay, so this one is a ketone.
15:25
- Ooh, I'm getting candy. - And it gives
15:27
like a perception of cooked. - It's like cooked sugar.
15:29
- Yeah, it's perfect.
15:31
Obviously we're making a fruit, right?
15:32
It's telling you, okay, you have those unripe notes
15:36
because fruits can be unripe
15:37
and you have a little bit of those cooked notes
15:39
because as they age, they do create sugars.
15:42
- The weirdest game of carbs I've ever played right here.
15:44
- [Lauren] So this is another ketone.
15:46
This is actually one of my favorites.
15:48
- This one's very sharp, like pointy.
15:50
- [Lauren] It's seedy.
15:51
- It's like those strawberries
15:52
you get in the pack that are not quite ready to eat.
15:54
- Yes, so put that with your group and smell that.
15:57
Isn't it crazy
15:58
how it's getting more- - Wow!
15:59
- And more complex
16:00
as it's going? - Yes!
16:01
And we're not even done yet.
16:02
- You can feel them, like.
16:04
- [Lauren] But they're all working together.
16:05
They're basically singing kumbaya right now.
16:06
- Yeah, they are.
16:08
We have a great choir coming in, okay.
16:09
- [Lauren] Okay, so sniff lightly, this is an acid,
16:12
so it's another one of our front guys.
16:15
- Okay.
16:15
Yeah, that's a little, that's a little funky.
16:17
Very sharp,
16:18
cheesy, like, there's some aging going on here.
16:20
Like, if I was in fruitville,
16:22
I'd be like, this is not, that one's going back.
16:24
- [Lauren] On its own, yes.
16:25
- I mean, it's weird, once you put it with the other ones,
16:27
yeah, it like fills out this flavor-
16:29
- And it brightens it, it lifts it.
16:32
- And now that strawberry just became like somehow riper.
16:35
- Yes. - Like fuller in this.
16:38
- More realistic.
16:39
- What the heck is going on?
16:41
Brains are weird.
16:42
- [Lauren] Okay, last one.
16:44
This is a sulfur.
16:45
What does it smell like?
16:46
- Rotting is what it smells like.
16:47
It just smells like-
16:48
- It smells like canned corn.
16:50
- Oh my God, it does.
16:51
(both laughing)
16:52
I get these all together.
16:55
(light tropical music)
16:57
Oh, this is wild.
16:58
I'm holding a strawberry,
16:59
like, every piece of the strawberry.
17:01
You don't wanna get any one of them too strong.
17:03
There's like ripeness
17:05
and like almost like fermented
17:07
like vinegary notes in there.
17:08
It's like the whole life of a fruit going on here.
17:11
- And the leafy green. - Yeah.
17:13
- The juiciness of it.
17:15
- All right, new YouTube feature needed: Smell o vision.
17:18
This is like-
17:19
- It's witchcraft.
17:20
- You're like Willy Wonka.
17:22
- Oh, thank you. - Yeah, this is amazing.
17:24
This has just been such a mind-blowing experience.
17:26
You can tell my brain's kind of melting.
17:27
- You're in the matrix right now. (laughs)
17:30
You are tasting these flavors,
17:33
even if it's not that actual strawberry,
17:36
it is the flavor of a strawberry
17:38
and the way that your mind connects it
17:40
to make it real to you.
17:42
It's important to know
17:43
that it is a valid thing to be tasting.
17:46
And even though it is concocted by, you know,
17:49
flavors and everything,
17:51
it is what a strawberry would be in nature,
17:55
just not from the direct strawberry.
17:57
- The brain doesn't lie, people,
17:59
if it thinks strawberry, then it's strawberry.
18:02
- There you go.
18:03
Not only are you creating a flavor that tastes good,
18:06
but you're also evoking a memory for somebody.
18:09
- Because there's so many other things
18:10
that go into that experience, right?
18:12
We've all had like a meal that just tastes so perfect
18:15
because of like the people you're with.
18:17
Or where you are. - Yes.
18:18
It could could have been your grandmother's last time
18:20
to create a lasagna for you.
18:22
Or ice cream cone that, you know,
18:25
you and your best friend had whenever you were five.
18:27
People are tasting it, they're seeing it.
18:31
They can pick up like those notes that we talked about,
18:34
but then it triggers something
18:35
and it makes it even more special to them
18:38
that they're having that with the flavor itself.
18:41
If I can bottle one feeling,
18:45
probably just happiness
18:46
because the flavor should make you feel happy
18:48
whenever you're enjoying it.
18:50
We try to make the world taste better.
18:52
- I thought consulting a flavorist
18:54
might reveal some singular truth
18:57
about the definition of flavor,
18:59
but instead I'm kind of wondering
19:01
whether flavor's even real.
19:03
I mean, even experts don't agree on exactly what it is,
19:07
but it's as clear as the crunchiness of a delicious chip
19:11
that the way we perceive flavor
19:14
is a symphony of many senses,
19:17
way beyond just taste and smell
19:19
carefully orchestrated by our brain
19:22
and even etched into our memories.
19:24
It's a deliciously complicated lens
19:26
through which we experience the world.
19:28
And now I can eat chips again
19:31
without it being a science experiment.
19:33
Stay curious.
19:35
(chip crunching)
19:39
And thank you to AnyDesk for supporting PBS.
19:42
AnyDesk was created to provide fast, secure remote access
19:45
whether you're working from home, on the road,
19:47
or managing systems across multiple locations.
19:49
With AnyDesk, you can remotely access computers
19:51
and servers directly, enabling secure file transfer
19:54
without relying on consumer cloud storage.
19:57
AnyDesk supports remote administration tasks
19:59
like managing servers, monitoring systems,
20:01
and accessing secure isolated devices
20:03
even from a phone or tablet.
20:04
It works across all major operating systems
20:06
and maintains compatibility with older
20:08
and legacy systems,
20:10
making it suitable for mixed
20:11
or long lifecycle IT environments.
20:13
To learn more about AnyDesk, go to AnyDesk.com/BeSmart
20:17
or check out the link in the description.
20:19
And as always, thank you to everyone
20:21
who supports the show on Patreon.
20:23
We could not make videos like this without your help.
20:26
I know more and more these days
20:27
your feed is full of low effort, sloppy videos
20:31
that are probably made by computers somewhere.
20:34
This show is a hand-carved organic product
20:37
made with real human effort by human brains,
20:41
and that takes a lot of work.
20:44
Thanks to these fine people
20:45
and the rest of our Patrons,
20:47
we're able to bring you some of the fine science
20:48
of communication here on YouTube.
20:50
And if you wanna help us do that,
20:51
there's a link down description where you can learn more.
20:53
- We need more shoots with food.
20:55
This is good. It's snack time.
20:58
Hey, welcome to Joe Reviews Chips.
21:01
- [Speaker] Keep the teleprompter still.
