Want to find out if you could have a new career as a “super taster?” Some people are actually born with more taste buds than others, meaning they can distinguish different tastes better. If you don’t have many taste buds, cheap wine will taste as good as the expensive kind, and you’re not likely to become a famous chef. Now a test has been developed that will rate your taste buds.
You’ll need some blue food coloring, a piece of paper with a hole a quarter of an inch wide punched in it and a magnifying glass. Paint some of the blue food coloring on the tip of your tongue. Your tongue will turn blue, but your taste buds, or papillae, will stay pink. Put the hole in the piece of paper in front of your tongue and looking in the mirror, use the magnifying glass to count how many pink dots you can see inside the hole. Fewer than 15 mean you’re a “non-taster,” between 15 and 35 means you’re average “taster” and over 35 papillae mean you’re a “super-taster,” and it’s time to quit your day job and make a living sampling fine food and wine. Researcher Linda Bartoshuk thinks 25% of the population are non-tasters, 50% tasters, and the other 25% are super-tasters. Around 35% of women are super-tasters, compared with 15% of men. Bartoshuk says, “Super-tasters perceive all tastes as more intense than do tasters and non-tasters.”
This test is nothing, compared to the seven experiments that could change the world.
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