Fat: The sixth taste?

[Shalmanese]

Interesting article at fivethirtyeight today about some research done by Australian researchers who posit that fat might actually be a distinct taste, with dedicated taste receptors on our tongue.

[GlorifiedRice]

Id agree, and I have a fat tooth

[gfweb]

Huh. I don't taste triglycerides. Peanut oil is just oily to me.

 

The one paper that was linked studied the perception of fatty acids which although they are lipids, are not fat per se.

 

Fat is triglyceride, which is a gycerol esterified to three fatty acids. Vegetable oils are ~99.9% triglyceride. Solid fat is made of triglycerides with longer carbon chains that remain solid until heated to their melting temp.  Fatty acids are not free in fat unless it has gone rancid and begun to break down.

 

Fatty acids are liberated from fat when mixed with saliva by the enzyme lipase. But unless one chews a lot without swallowing, the fatty acids wouldn't seem to have much time to accumulate where they could be tasted.

 

Sensing fatty acids isn't so novel. The shorter chain ones have odor..acetic is vinegar, propionic is cheesy, butyric is vomity, caprilic and caproic are goaty (hence their names).

 

I'd love to see the other references. Interesting stuff.

[dcarch]

How do you taste fat? Fat is not water soluble like the other tastes.

 

If it is a taste, can you use it as a seasoning like the other tastes? (OK OK, people use bacon like they use seasonings  )

 

Is hot pepper spicy a taste?

 

What about the taste of alcohol?

 

What difference does it make what you call it?

 

 

dcarch

 

 

.

[GlorifiedRice]

dcarch I can taste fat, definitely., and that taste is addictive to me, especially butter, cream, chocolate, coconut oil, and the after taste of that Magic Shell stuff...Almond butter too

[gfweb]

All the stuff you listed is flavored fat.

 

Can you taste a neutral oil, GlorifiedRice?

[GlorifiedRice]

All the stuff you listed is flavored fat.

 

Can you taste a neutral oil, GlorifiedRice?

I just tasted Crisco oil... I can still taste "it" Its not a mouthfeel or a texture, its a finish and I dont know why its so pleasing...

[gfweb]

I just tasted Crisco oil... I can still taste "it" Its not a mouthfeel or a texture, its a finish and I dont know why its so pleasing...

 

Huh.

By 'finish' you mean back of the tongue lingering flavor...in the same sense as umami?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Crisco would have umami?

[FeChef]

I do not taste oil either. Oil and vinegar on a salad does nothing for me accept as a binder to hold the vinegar on the lettuce. I get the same effect using water thickened with xanthan gum.

[pbear]

Plainly, we perceive the texture of fats.  The linked article and the paper it discusses acknowledge this.  (We also perceive the textures of gelatin, starch colloids and all sorts of things.)  Even stipulating we have separate taste receptors for fat, the strength of that signal is minuscule compared to the texture signal, as evidenced by the difficulty they had teasing out the former clinically.  It's problematic scientifically to attribute to the taste receptors something as broad as why we like fats.  If we're to focus on the tongue, the texture signal is a much more likely candidate.  In fact, ISTM, the aroma components arising from cooking fatty foods dwarf both in this regard.

Edited February 22, 2015 by pbear (log)

[Mendel C-k]

 

Huh. I don't taste triglycerides. Peanut oil is just oily to me.

 

The one paper that was linked studied the perception of fatty acids which although they are lipids, are not fat per se.

 

Fat is triglyceride, which is a gycerol esterified to three fatty acids. Vegetable oils are ~99.9% triglyceride. Solid fat is made of triglycerides with longer carbon chains that remain solid until heated to their melting temp.  Fatty acids are not free in fat unless it has gone rancid and begun to break down.

 

Fatty acids are liberated from fat when mixed with saliva by the enzyme lipase. But unless one chews a lot without swallowing, the fatty acids wouldn't seem to have much time to accumulate where they could be tasted.

 

Sensing fatty acids isn't so novel. The shorter chain ones have odor..acetic is vinegar, propionic is cheesy, butyric is vomity, caprilic and caproic are goaty (hence their names).

 

I'd love to see the other references. Interesting stuff.

 BTW, I think it's more to do with saturated/unsaturated than length for TAG viscosity. but the dispersion/VDW forces related to the MW of the hrdocarbon chain is a significant factor.

 

To the OP, I think that from a culinary standpoint the article focuses on the sensation of fatty acids, not TAGs which are what we are commonly exposed to in the kitchen. Futhermore, the "taste" of fat the many would associate with cooking in fat, eating fatty foods, is due to the myriad of other substances ( L-Amino acids, H+, Na+, Cyclohexamides basic sugars and maillard products) that are contained either with the fat in question (the volatiles in EVOO or the proteins and sugars as well as everything else you can think of that is in lard (remember that adipose tissue is still cellular)) and not the TAG itself. For one thing, TAGs are inherently insoluble, which means they are far less likely to be adsorbed and thus register as a "taste". Yes, there are GPCRs and other receptors that can pick up Fatty acids (not TAGs) but they are in such low concentration and the receptors relatively sparse for them to have any effect.

GlorifiedRice's "fat taste" is the result of perhaps a couple of things. Firstly, tasting the many other dissolved substances present in the "fat". The other is due to classical conditioning. The human brain is an amazing thing. If it receives a certain mouthfeel it will sometimes register a taste that is has learned to associate with said mouthfeel. Add to this the fact that the brain knows it is eating something fatty and is possibly receiving olfactory stimulation from the cooking process and you get the perception of taste when its not really there.

[GlorifiedRice]

GlorifiedRice's "fat taste" is the result of perhaps a couple of things. Firstly, tasting the many other dissolved substances present in the "fat". The other is due to classical conditioning. The human brain is an amazing thing. If it receives a certain mouthfeel it will sometimes register a taste that is has learned to associate with said mouthfeel. Add to this the fact that the brain knows it is eating something fatty and is possibly receiving olfactory stimulation from the cooking process and you get the perception of taste when its not really there.

 

 

Oil or fats are too thin to have texture or mouthfeel IMO. Mouthfeel and/or texture comes to fats when whipped or emulsified... the finish has a flavor to me. If it didnt then Fat Free Half and Half would be satisfying, but its not...

[Mendel C-k]

Oil or fats are too thin to have texture or mouthfeel IMO. Mouthfeel and/or texture comes to fats when whipped or emulsified... the finish has a flavor to me. If it didnt then Fat Free Half and Half would be satisfying, but its not...

 

Satiation, satisfaction and ability to sense the presence of fat is VERY different to taste. 

 

Also - "too thin to have texture", I think if you put a knob of ghee and the same amount of water in your mouth you'd be able to sense the difference

[pbear]

Oil or fats are too thin to have texture or mouthfeel IMO. Mouthfeel and/or texture comes to fats when whipped or emulsified... the finish has a flavor to me. If it didnt then Fat Free Half and Half would be satisfying, but its not...

 

Come now.  To pick an obvious example, surely you can tell the difference between a stock which has been degreased and one which has not.  And, yes, I'm talking about both when warm.

[btbyrd]

There's a large range of qualities that one can refer to when discussing mouth feel. Gawel et. al developed a vocabulary for communicating the mouthfeel characteristics of red wine. Chewiness, for example. is said to "give the sensation that mouth movements (chewing) can displace the sensation of astringency." When talking about fats in particular, there are a number of associated textural/mouthfeel characteristics associated with lipids. These include "body, creamy, gelatinous, greasy, melting, oily, slimy, smooth, sticky, thick, thin, waxy, and wet." If you really want to nerd out about the topic, Frontiers in Neuroscience published the anthology "Fat Detection: Taste, Texture, and Post Ingestive Effects" which you can read for free. There are chapters on gustatory and olfactory detection of fat along with a good piece by Mattes on whether fat counts as a primary taste.

Edited February 23, 2015 by btbyrd (log)

[GlorifiedRice]

What if tasting fat is like peoples perceptions of cilantro?

[paulraphael]

If fat represents a distinct taste, it wouldn't be the fifth ... it would be the tenth or twelfth, and counting ...

 

Sensory research is a hot field right now, and they constantly discover more tastes. At a recent lecture I attended with Hervé This, he discussed the discovery of at least two distinct types of umami, at least two distinct types of bitterness, a distinct metallic taste, and a distinct alkaline taste. All this research is quite young, so we can expect more even more complexity in the future.

 

Re: the weird flavor of distilled water ... this is because our sense of "neutral" is keyed to our own saliva. To truly taste neutral, water needs to have the same acidity and mineral content as saliva. Tap water and mineral water are likely to come a bit closer to this than distilled water. 

Edited February 23, 2015 by paulraphael (log)

[chefmd]

Jennifer McLagan is mentioning fat as a taste several times in her book Bitter that I am currently reading.  Not sure if she mentioned it in her book Fat, need to go back to it and review.  I would think that fat is more of a mouthfeel than a taste but one can argue that mouthfeel is related to taste.  I was eating something the other day and noted that it tasted too fatty, it was some type of savory pastry that was deep fried.  Foie gras comes to mind as an example of fat that you can taste althoug I am sure that there is a lot more that one is tasting in foie.  Butter on toast tastes luxuriously fatty.  Stock that is boiled fast so fat emulsifies, tastes different from French style slowly simmered stock wtih fat removed after chilling.  OK, must go and do some extensive testing now...

[JoNorvelleWalker]

What it boils down to, I'm guessing, is if fat receptors can be identified on the tongue.  My hunch is that fat is indeed a taste.

[GlorifiedRice]

Well, in that OP article it states that some people think FAT tastes BITTER. That leaves me scratching my head. Id say fat is UNCTUOUS

[gfweb]

It really comes down to whatever the science is and whether it is done well.

[Toliver]

Plainly, we perceive the texture of fats.  The linked article and the paper it discusses acknowledge this.  (We also perceive the textures of gelatin, starch colloids and all sorts of things.)  Even stipulating we have separate taste receptors for fat, the strength of that signal is minuscule compared to the texture signal, as evidenced by the difficulty they had teasing out the former clinically.  It's problematic scientifically to attribute to the taste receptors something as broad as why we like fats.  If we're to focus on the tongue, the texture signal is a much more likely candidate.  In fact, ISTM, the aroma components arising from cooking fatty foods dwarf both in this regard.

Yes, this. I think it's the mouthfeel. Compare a salad dressing made without oil compared to one that has it. It's a completely different experience.

 

Well, in that OP article it states that some people think FAT tastes BITTER. That leaves me scratching my head. Id say fat is UNCTUOUS

 

That's the word...unctuous! Perfect.

It's one of the reasons why I choose to eat McDonald's McRib sandwiches when they appear yearly on the menu. It's because of the unctuousness of the mystery meat.