At school we’re taught our tongues register a small number of primary tastes: salty, sweet, sour and bitter. Seven years ago a fifth taste was added to this list — Umami, which refers to the savoury taste often associated with monosodium glutamate. Monosodium glutamate is a salt that contains glutamate – an amino acid present in our bodies, and one that plays a role in metabolism and communication between neurons. “MSG” is added to many foods as a flavor enhancer. MSG has been linked to high blood pressure and obesity.
With five tastes established, is there are case to add a sixth? The answer is ‘yes’, according to Juyun Lim, who is a researcher based at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Lim told New Scientist magazine that “every culture has a major source of complex carbohydrate. The idea that we can’t taste what we’re eating doesn’t make sense.”
The reason why starch has been previously dismissed as something humans can taste is because enzymes in saliva quickly break starch down into simple sugars. For this reason it was assumed that humans detect starch by tasting sugar molecules.
In recent trials, however, conducted by Dr. Lim, volunteer subjects given starch-like solutions to taste reported they could detected a ‘starch’-like taste. The solutions that contained long or shorter carbohydrate chains. The volunteers often likened the taste to “floury.” The net wave of the research will be to identify the tongue receptor responsible.
The data suggests people can sense carbohydrates before they have been completely broken down into sugar molecules. The results have been reported to the journal Chemical Senses, in a research paper titled “.Humans Can Taste Glucose Oligomers Independent of the hT1R2/hT1R3 Sweet Taste Receptor”
