Are There Any Theories as to Why Food Tastes Good and Taste Buds Developed?
- Bryan Le
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Subreddit: r/Biology
User: u/BiggyBiggDew
Original Post:
I was wondering about this last night. It would seem helpful if food tasted good and toxic substances tasted bad, but AFAIK while there are a handful of toxic substances that don't taste bad there is a huge amount of edible material that doesn't taste good, or at least doesn't taste good to some people. I know cilantro is a well used example and that it's a product of a mutation, but I am more broadly curious about other foods such as butter, bread, fruits, etc.
Chemically did we just start to attract towards things that have sugars in them, and other compounds that our bodies need? I know there is some literature around people developing new appetites when their bodies are going through changes such as pregnancy, or sickness.
Are taste buds just evolutionarily driven to kind of steer us in the general right direction towards matter that our bodies might need?
I ask because I was wondering why one person might not like a more benign food like cottage cheese, not something as strongly flavored like cilantro, and considering whether it has more to do with things like texture, or memory, and not so much to do with mutations or differences in taste buds from one person to another.
My Response:
Hi, food scientist coming in here from the perspective of flavor chemistry:
As others have commented, it does appear that taste buds are signaling for certain monomers formed from the breakdown or hydrolysis of macromolecules that are required for optimal nutrition. Or they can serve as an indicator that a food has gone bad or rancid.
There's a good series of papers that outline the origins of a lot of taste buds - essentially chemical attractant receptors attached to simpler organisms. In fact, a large proportion of taste buds are actually found in your gastrointestinal system. They help to trigger the release of digestive enzymes and bile salts that are needed to break down the particular macromolecule that the receptor is triggering for:
Sweetness -> Sugars -> Carbohydrates
Saltiness -> Sodium/Potassium -> Mineral Content
Bitterness -> Toxins, Peptides (incomplete protein hydrolysis), Charred Foods (overcooked), Rancidity Byproducts, or Fermentation Byproducts
Sourness - > Organic Acids -> Fermented Sugars (sign of fermentation, food going rancid)
Umami (Savory, Intensity) -> Glutamic Acid -> Amino Acids -> Proteins
Umami (Savory, Synergy) -> Ribonucleotides -> Ribonucleic Acids
Kokumi (Savory, Longevity and Amplitude) -> Glutathione -> Sulfur Content/Antioxidant Potential
Oleogustus -> Fatty Acids -> Fats
If you want to get deeper into it, there's relatively more recent taste literature that shows that the umami receptor of humans are particularly sensitive to ribonucleotides that have undergone Maillard reactions with sulfur-containing molecules. Sulfur in food is particularly important because the human brain generates a high level of free radicals and mitochondrial oxygen byproducts from energy metabolism.
So foods that have been cooked to generate Maillard byproducts that have a combination of sugars (sweetness), amino acids (umami), ribonucleotides (umami, synergy), and sulfur-containing molecules (cysteine, glutathione, thiols) will generate what are known as thio-ribonucleotides, which have some of the highest umami intensities recorded. All of which are essential for growth, development, and metabolism. And this happens in fairly simple kitchen-level chemistry:
With cooked food being an important part of our human evolution:
Dr. Bryan Quoc Le is the Founder and Principal Food Consultant of Mendocino Food Consulting. He earned his Ph.D. in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and his B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine. He currently lives in Mendocino, California with his wife and two dogs.
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