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You probably already know that you taste with the taste buds on your tongue. You may have heard an old myth that different areas on your tongue taste different types of flavor, but your whole tongue can actually taste everything you eat. Taste buds are spread out all over your tongue.
There are some differences between different people’s tongues, though. Some people can taste things, well, better than other people. Flavors are super strong to them, so we call them supertasters! This quick experiment will help you find out if anyone in your family is a supertaster. You’ll need a few different people to compare to each other so try to get everyone in your family to participate!
Materials
- Hole punch reinforcers (those little circle stickers with a hole in the middle)
- Water
- Soap
- Blue food coloring
- Magnifying glass
- Flashlight
- Paper and pencil
- As many volunteers as you can find
- A glass of water for each volunteer
Process
- Wash your hands with soap and water.
- Put a drop of blue food coloring on the tip of your first volunteer’s tongue, making sure that you don’t touch their tongue with the food coloring dropper.
- Have the volunteer swish around a mouthful of water and then spit it out. Then have them swallow a couple of times to dry their tongue out a bit.
- Have your volunteer stick their tongue out. Their tongue should be stained blue except for little bumps that are pinkish or whitish blue. These bumps contain their taste buds.
- Put one of your hole punch reinforcer stickers on the tip of the tongue, around where you put the drop of food coloring.
- Now, using your magnifying glass and your flashlight, count the number of bumps. There will also be very tiny bumps but ignore those. We just want the bigger ones.
- When you’ve counted them all, write that number down next to your volunteer’s name.
- Repeat this process with your other volunteers. Make sure you wash your hands between each volunteer, so you don’t spread germs.
- Finally, have someone else go through the process on you so you know if you’re a supertaster!
Summary
How many bumps did you have? How many did all of your volunteers have? If any of you had more than 30 of these bumps in that tiny circle, then they are supertasters! Most people are normal, or average tasters, with 15-30. Did anyone in your group have a low number, below 15? They’re called non-tasters, and they don’t taste foods as strongly as average tasters or supertasters. To non-tasters, most foods and drinks taste bland. To supertasters, foods like broccoli and grapefruit or drinks like coffee may taste so bitter that they can’t eat them at all. About a quarter of all people are supertasters. Another quarter are non-tasters, and the other half are just regular average tasters.
The bumps that we were counting are called fungiform papillae. They’re named for the mushroom-like shape they have under a microscope. Mushrooms are a kind of fungus, so we get “fungi,” and “form” is just another word for “shape.” Your taste buds are on these fungiform papillae, and they’re made up of a bunch of cells that have the job of sensing the molecules in your food and drinks and sending signals to your brain. There are five basic tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami, which is a savory taste. These five combine in different amounts depending on what you’re eating to give you all the flavors you can think of, from milk chocolate to fried chicken and everything in between.
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