I thought lots of people were being very unfair in the comments section when saying that they knew all this, but I never knew by how much all our other senses play a role in taste.
Every time we eat chocolate, for instance, all sorts of memories kick in, so that we get the beautiful familiarity of comfort, security, and happiness along with the taste. And I always did wonder how with only five types of taste buds we can detect so many different flavours, but we do it with our sense of smell. Yes, I did know this, but I did not know that our sense of smell did all of it, with our taste buds only accounting for sweet, sour, salt, bitter, and unami, which I thought combined to give us the different flavours, but this must occur within the back of the mouth somehow.
From the internet -
The senses of smell and taste combine at the back of the throat. When you taste something before you smell it, the smell lingers internally up to the nose causing you to smell it. ... Although humans commonly distinguish taste as one sense and smell as another, they work together to create the perception of flavor.
We feel as if our consciousness is unified—we integrate sight, sound, all the senses. Our minds feel as an indivisible whole. But eye or brain injury can alter or eliminate sight. A stroke can destroy subtle aspects of language capacity—you can write and not speak, speak and not write. The brain is compartmentalized. So is unified consciousness an illusion?
Good video. Interesting that he mentions taste includes not only things like sweet, sour, etc. mixed with mostly smell, but also texture.
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Definition. UNAMI. United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq
Umami (/uːˈmɑːmi/ from Japanese: 旨味 Japanese pronunciation: [ɯmami]), or savoriness, is one of the five basic tastes. It has been described as savory and is characteristic of broths and cooked meats.
A tiger may be more aware of what is savory than omnivores.
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