Tasty!

“I can’t like that,” is the response my daughter, Marley, gives us when we try to offer her new food. This behavior has made me do some pretty drastic things, like call my mom and dad to apologize for the deviled egg incident.

When I was a child, like Marley, I had my likes and dislikes. Deviled eggs were a big dislike. No matter how much my mom and dad assured me I would like them, I knew I would not. Finally, after screaming, negotiating, and even some tears, I succumbed and gave a deviled egg a shot. Awful!

Now that I have matured I have given them another chance. Much to my dismay, I actually like them now. I do not know how this could be possible thinking back to that tragic afternoon and how a simple deviled egg forever scared me.

There has to be an explanation.

Stick your tongue out and you will see little bumps all over the surface. I used to think those bumps were taste buds responsible for the sense of taste. It turns out, like most things left unexamined, I was wrong. The actual buds line those tiny little bumps, which are called “papillae,” and in each bud there are little hairs called “microvilli.”

These sensitive, microscopic hairs tell your brain if something is sweet, sour, salty, bitter or umami. Umami is specifically for the amino acid glutamate. If you are like me and don’t know what glutamate tastes like, you might have tasted it in the form of MSG.

Taste buds are not only more complex than I originally thought, they are much more numerous as well. The average person has nearly 10,000 taste buds and, amazingly, they get replaced about every two weeks. As we get older, not as many get replaced and some people may only have 5,000. So it would appear that my tastes are not refining with age, rather my taste is being diminished.

There is another key component to taste that you know if you have ever been sick or held your nose to impede your ability to taste something. When you chew on your food, chemicals are released. These chemicals move up your nose to olfactory receptors, which, like the microvilli, send signals to your brain about what you are eating. When you are sick, or pinching your nose to prevent a taste, the upper part of your nose does not receive the chemicals to trigger the taste.

Finally, taste is genetic. The genes you get from your parents determine the type and number of sensors you get. I would say this is some sort of retribution being able to blame my mom and dad for not liking that deviled egg but I know better. As soon as I do, Marley will blame me, but she has a few years until she understands what this means. In the meantime, I will just wait for her taste buds stop regenerating so quickly so we can get her off the mac and cheese diet.