FutureIQ Knowledgebase

We Eat With Our Eyes - How Your Taste Buds Are Tricked - FutureIQ

2,809 views Wait, is this logic right? • Apr 24, 2025
Open in YouTube
Slog Reference: 6 Ways to Fool Your Taste Buds

Description

Can you really trick your taste buds? In this episode of Future IQ, Navin and Shrikant dive into the fascinating world of taste perception, revealing how color, smell, appearance, and texture influence what you think you’re eating. Whether it’s the crunch of a chip or the color of your plate, your sense of taste isn’t as reliable as you think. From surprising taste psychology research to real-world examples of taste trickery, learn 6 science-backed ways your senses can fool your brain—and how chefs and food scientists use these hacks every day.


More Videos:
There are only 2 Sexes: https://youtu.be/ZbUNiISwPbQ
Pav Bhaji is Not INDIAN?https://youtu.be/J1ECp8OmsxA
You're Eating GARBAGEhttps://youtu.be/cIQcK1r6bLY

Sources:
Atmospheric Effects on Eating and Drinking: A Review: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-14504-0_119
On the psychological impact of food colour: https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13411-015-0031-3
Effect Color Has on Food Perception, Flavor and Quality https://www.hunterlab.com/blog/effect-color-has-on-food-perception-flavor-and-quality/
How Does Colour Affect The Way We Eat? https://www.foodunfolded.com/article/how-does-colour-affect-the-way-we-eat
Why expensive wine appears to taste better: It's the price tag: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170814092949.htm
Odor–Taste Interactions in Food Perception: https://academic.oup.com/chemse/article/doi/10.1093/chemse/bjab003/6105024

00:00 Your Tongue is Dumb!
00:55 Colour affects Taste Perception - Predictive coding theory
04:07 Restaurants use food colouring
05:29 What's on your colourful plate?
07:12 Smell affects Taste
08:10 Air Plane Food Sucks! WHY?
10:05 Flavor’s Got a Temperature Setting
12:13 Good Music = Good Beer
14:25 The More You Pay, The Better It Tastes
15:26 Flavor Fluctuates When You're Freaking Out
17:06 How To Recognize Good Food?

#FutureIQ #TasteTrickery #FoodPsychology #FlavorIllusions

Related Slog Matches

6 Ways to Fool Your Taste Buds

Vector

64.72

Transcript

Your tongue is dumb. It can easily be tricked into thinking that a cherry flavored drink is actually lime or orange, that a vanilla flavored custard is chocolate flavored, or that a white wine is red wine. Not just that, but it can be tricked into thinking that a cheap wine is actually like a fancy expensive wine or that a cake is more chocolatey and more rich than actually what is in there or that a beer is more exciting than what it really is. These I know about the cheap wine and expensive wine thing, but all of these sound outlandish, Naven, I I know the difference between a cherry flavor and a lime flavor. No, you know the difference
between a cherry flavored drink that looks red and orange flavored drinks that looks orange. Okay. Okay. Color affects your taste perception. This much. This much. Yeah. So there is research showing that identical cherry flavored drinks but food coloring was used so that one looked like regular red cherry flavored another looked yellow like lime and one looked orange right and people thought they were three different drinks cherry lime and orange. Was the flavor was the coloring adding the flavor? No, not at all. They were identical taste. The flavor was being added by your brain because you do not expect an orange colored drink to have a cherry flavor. You expect it to have an orange flavor. Okay? It is called the
predictive coding theory of the brain. The brain looks at all kinds of cues, decides what it is looking at or what it is tasting and then most cases it just confirms it using confirmation bias. Okay. A red drink was rated as more strawberry flavoring, stronger strawberry flavor than a similar colorless drink. Although the taste was exactly identical. Okay, this is going against the predictive coding theory of my brain. My brain is unable to predict what he's about to say next, but it makes sense nonetheless. Take wine, right? Red wine and white wine are supposed to be so different.
And yet when researchers added red color to white wine and then asked people to describe the wine, they described it in the same uh adjectives that are typically used for red wine. Okay, listen. I don't understand wines all that much. I am I'm not a wine coner, but uh I could possibly get confused between lime and orange. Cherry and orange are really distinct flavors. Naveen, I'm not talking about very strong flavors. Okay, light flavors. It makes that much of a difference. Not like completely from here to there. See, color affects much more than just flavor. It affects how much we eat.
What? For example, participants in a study, some of them were given just one color of yogurt and others were given yogurt in three different colors. Taste was identical. But because it was three different colors, people ate more. Okay? because they wanted to taste all the flavors in all the colors. No, but it's not just that. Our brain works differently, right? You take M&M's, okay? People were told to pour a certain quantity of M&M's into a bowl. Some people were given just M&M's of just one color and others were given many different colors. Huh? The people in the second group poured 12% more than the people in the first group because they couldn't figure out because the there
were assorted colors and no just our brain works differently, right? One color is boring. You don't want too much of a boring thing. Multiple colors is exciting and you want more of exciting things, right? That's why Smarties intentionally come in many different colors although they taste the same because people eat more of those. Okay. Okay. I don't know what smarties are but they are very smarty the makers I mean right now food coloring is used in restaurants quite a lot because they want to manipulate you okay there are companies which sell food coloring to restaurants and they have a catalog of 70 different colors 70 yes to make your food look yummier. Okay. Not just that,
but you eat less but feel more full because of the food color. Okay, that's just taking it a little too far. Just because of food color I will explain, right? Because if something has a rich red color, your brain assumes that it'll be full of fat and protein and stuff like that, right? So, it is anticipating a heavy meal. So, even though you ate something, it feels more full. Okay, this is taking us back to the savana, right? Absolutely right. All our brains mechanisms have evolved for the savas and modern marketers are hacking those so that they give you less food but you feel oh this has good portion sizes right I feel full at the end of it.
Okay. Of course, agenomoto is also used for that. Uh, baking soda is used for that. But, uh, yeah. So, restaurants also manipulate you using color. Okay. I thought I knew that restaurants paint the colors of their walls a certain color because it makes you feel slightly Oh, there's a whole bunch of other things they do, right? Other than just the color of the food, there are other colors that also matter. Example, moose, right? Chocolate mousse. Yeah. under warmer color lights like orangish reddish colors that moose was rated as richer and more chocolaty than under white light and bluish lights.
Similarly, red ambient light makes a red wine seem richer and more fancy and fruier than if it was just served in regular light. It also makes the red wine look more red. So all of that also, but also deserts served on a white plate are rated as richer and tastier compared to desserts served on a black plate. This this is so evil, man. This is so evil by No, no, no, no. There are good uses of this. Okay, dementia patients getting them to eat is like one of the difficult problems, right? But research shows that if you give them in like multicolored plates, they eat more. I didn't know this and this is very interesting to know. But so you can your
brain can be hacked in good ways also, right? Thank you for that little sliver of sunshine within those very dark clouds. But I guess also me what I was basically trying to come at earlier was it meshes well with color theory where blue makes you feel less hungry, red makes you feel more hungry and uh you know more ravenous which is why certain restaurants choose red color palettes whereas restaurants that are giving you healthy food choose bluer or greener color palettes and stuff like that. But it's not just color. Okay. Okay. Smell affects taste. Okay. In fact, most people don't know that 80 90% of taste is actually smell. As soon as you put food in your mouth or even take it close
to your mouth, there are particles that go in your nose. Yeah. And that smell is what is creating the concept of taste in your head. Okay. And this can be easily figured out by if you keep your nose closed. These are called plugged nose experiments, right? You put a little clip on your nose and then you can't tell the difference between cinnamon and camin and paprika. They all taste similar, right? You can't tell the difference between red wine and white wine, right? The whole thing about red wine is those complex flavors are actually complex smells in your nose, right? Wow. A jelly bean, you can't tell the difference between the different flavors, but as soon as you open your
nose, you can tell, oh, this is that one, right? So, airplane food sucks. Remember how Jerry Seinfeld said, "What's the deal with airplane food?" What's the deal with airplane food? I will tell you what's the deal with airplane food. Tell me. Okay. In an airplane, the air is fully controlled. It is dry. Okay. As a result, there is not enough moisture in your nose. As a result, your sense of smell is a little lower than normal. And as a result, a lot of your taste has disappeared because it was coming from your sense of smell. So airplane food tastes bland because of the dryness in the air which is kept at a certain pressurized level.
Absolutely. So the chefs are actually making it taste good, but we can't taste the actual taste because we can't smell it. Wow. Mr. Seinfeld, you better send a note of thanks to Naven for this. Yeah. Another research was interesting, right? They gave tasteless jelly, you know, the jello thing to people. Except that somewhere near there they had put in one case strawberry smell. Okay. Like like ah Yeah. And in another one was apple scent. Okay. And these guys claimed it was strawberry jelly. And these guys claimed it was apple jelly. Just because it's taste was the same. What went inside the mouth was the same. what went inside the nose was different. And so I
wish medicine manufacturers understood this. Somebody please clip this little portion and send it to all the pharma companies and tell them even if you're medicine tastes disgusting and bland or whatever, if you can make it smell good, it'll at least go down well. Especially with kids. Wish our childhood medicine manufacturers knew that. So we did color effects uh taste. We did smell affects taste. There is more. There is of course more. You can, you know, there is always more. Go to all senses, right? Temperature affects taste. Kind of makes sense because I like eating hot food more than eating cold. Everybody knows this, right? Temperature affects food.
Some things taste good hot, some things taste good cold. They just do. Can you guess why? No, actually I never thought about simple, right? At a higher temperature there is more evaporation and as a result there is more odors and flavors going into your nose. Uh right also because of that the effect is less for liquids. Right. Because as soon as you put it in your mouth they very quickly reach body temperature. They're all roughly at the same temperature. But for solids the hotter it is the more flavors go into your nose. That's why hot food, hot roties, hot chow will taste very different from cold ones. Hot pizzas taste better than cold pizzas.
But cold ice cream tastes better than hot ice cream. Yes. So there is one more effect going on. Okay. The receptors, taste receptors on our tongue, they have different sensitivities at different temperatures. Oh. So the sweet uh receptors, they work better at slightly higher temperatures. So ice cream if you see if it has just come out of the freezer it doesn't taste as good but as it slowly starts to melt it tastes nicer and sweeter but bitter is the opposite. Okay, bitter receptors are more sensitive at lower temperatures which is why coffee tastes good when it is hot but that same one at a lower temperature tastes quite bitter. By the way I'm talking about American Americano coffee,
right? Indian coffee is mostly milk and sugar. So that has different things. Okay. A lot of South Indians are going to be really really angry with you. No, no. South Indians, no. They will not drink cold filter coffee. Okay. Whereas all you people, you're drinking cold coffee all the time, right? That's a different thing. That's not you slowly went from geriatric millennial to almost boomer. Okay, don't go there. Okay, let's go back to our focus. All right. We have we have had color, we have had smell, we've had temperature. Well, sound also affects taste. Sound is this like some sesthesia thing? What does sound have to do with taste? When you are eating a potato chip, okay, if it makes a crunchy
sound, it tastes fresher to you because crunchy is fresher. No, they did research on this. They gave an old chip but they also added a crunchy sound just when they were biting in the background. In the background and people felt this was a fresh nice chip. Who are these researchers and who are giving them stacks of Pringles to test? What is this research? Oh, you will not believe the creativity of these researchers. Okay. What they gave subjects an ice cream which was flavored bacon and egg ice cream. Okay. Then on the speakers in the restaurant in the background, huh, when they played the sound of bacon sizzling, Mhm. people felt that the bacon flavor was stronger in the ice cream. But for
the same ice cream, when they played the sounds of chickens clucking, people felt this has more of an egg flavor. Okay, I'll tell you the real reason they do this research. Okay. Okay. The research shows that if you play music that a person likes beer tastes more bubbly, more interesting than if the music playing is not what they like. Ah, sound affects taste. Right now it starts to make sense. Now it makes sense why restaurants play a certain kind of music and why you prefer restaurants that play a certain kind of music.
Exactly. Because the food tastes better there because the music is better there or better according to you. But the easiest simplest way to affect taste has nothing to do with our senses. The easiest most important one is price affects taste. Is this the cheap red wine, expensive red wine research? Absolutely. This is the famous wine price study, right? Go for it. The same wine when it was poured out of a cheap bottle was rated as like, okay, this is okay. Whereas if it was poured out of an bottle of a very expensive wine, it tasted so much better to the participants. Right. Similarly, chocolates which are priced at luxury levels taste more rich and nicer to
people than the same chocolate given away for free or like you know cheap. But listen, Belgian pralines are actually they are good they are. Well, you don't want to know what goes into Belgian chocolate. Okay, there's an entire field of study there where you are being conned. Okay, but let's not go there. I will make him do an episode on it. Don't worry, I will remember this Belgian chocolate episode. Sixth way is stress affects taste. Stress. Yes, we have done an episode on how stress affects everything in your life and how stress affects your heart. Obviously, stress affects your taste also. I I remember us talking about stress affecting the internal systems of the body. But taste in that episode we
talked about how when you are stressed your body stops doing anything that it thinks is not important. Yeah. Saliva production is one of those. So now if you're producing less saliva tastes in your mouth everything is blander. Yeah. Right. Which is why if you are relaxed you eat better and food tastes better. Whereas when you are stressed everything is like Yeah. And you end up also eating lesser because saliva production because stress because a lot of things. Correct. So if you want to truly enjoy your food, relax. Yes. Because the other reason why things taste worse when you're stressed is because your brain is focused on other things. And we said that a lot of
taste is in your brain. If your brain is not thinking about the taste, then it doesn't taste. And clearly the brain is not really thinking about taste a lot of the time as is proven. There is color, there is smell, there is temperature, there is sound, there is price, and then there is stress. All of these affecting your taste buds. They are not your buds clearly. They are your enemies. Okay, they're not enemies, but you know what I mean. Fascinating little insight into how our brain works. Don't diss the brain. Okay. All of this works extremely well when you are eating natural food under natural conditions. Right? The brain is taking correct decisions about what are the things you need, what are
the things you should be eating, what are the things you should be enjoying. Okay? It's only when modern marketing gets involved and then tries to hack these systems Yeah. to sell you more stuff. That's when a problem is caused. Right. Yeah. That's why Michael Polland says about food. Eat food which your great-grandmother would recognize as food. So if it came from a factory, if it came in a packaging, especially if the packaging said healthy, try to avoid that because your taste is being manipulated and you are being made to crave food that makes them money. That is definitely true. And uh that's not the only misconception we have about food. By the way, we did an entire
episode on uh food related misconceptions that you should definitely be aware of. This is just taste, but there is an entire thing about food and stuff that you don't know about food that you should probably check out next. Meanwhile, uh I will go and figure out uh how to enjoy certain things using this newfound knowledge about manipulating my taste. Navin Shriant, Future IQ.