Why do foods that smell bad to me also taste bad?

Assuming that was a real question ...
Except for the elemental tastes: salty, sour, sweet, and yummy the experience of tasting is mostly about smell. If you are blindfolded and your nose is blocked or you have a cold you can confuse an apple and an onion. Vision affects your taste experience too in a psychological manner.

Why do foods that smell bad to me also taste bad?

If mice have calcium receptors because they eat cheese, do you think humans have special bacon receptors?

I'm slogging through an article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (referenced in this blog:

http://www.cognitionandculture.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=203:tasty-food-for-anthropological-thought&catid=16:varia&Itemid=34

I think the articles is saying that the idea of 5 or 7 or even 9 basic tastes is just not good science...I have to keep reading though.

Chocolate is a basic taste. The more stressed one gets, the more one needs it to stay healthy.

Really. I'm quite sure of it.

You are going to find this weird, but I can taste the difference in Egg Beaters that have calcium added and those that don't.

I eat both real eggs and the "fake" liquid stuff, by the way. I just don't want to ingest all that cholesterol, despite our esteemed Owl positing that that dietary cholesterol doesn't turn into blood cholesterol.

I had borderline high cholesterol, stopped eating eggs every day, and my numbers plummeted.

I can't abide those orange juices with extra calcium--tastes like drinking chalk to me.

I don't know what the big deal is. I can taste the difference in every mineral water, meaning genuine water from the ground with significant mineral content. Some are high in calcium and others in magnesium and all combos in between.

Why would mammals have calcium receptors in their mouths? Uh, because they all need and need to like milk to get their lives started.

Lissa said "Chocolate is a basic taste", to which I can only reply "Amen"!

Okay,
Since you brought up chocolate, what is your favorite?

Dark or Milk?

As a kid, I loved milk chocolate. Now, dark is the best.

Besides, supposedly dark has antioxidants that can make us feel like we're eating health food.

Those milk ads are so disgusting. You know that that is not ever milk in the photo. It's Elmer's glue. Really.

Fl Rob, I too used to love milk chocolate as a child but now prefer dark. I also like smaller amounts of it. I am satisfied with a small square (or 2) of a good dark chocolate whereas with milk chocolate I would want to eat a whole bar (which have shrunk - I swear it!). I wonder if dark chocolate is a taste that children have to "grow into"?

I like dark chocolate, although a good quality milk chocolate (that is, not something I can get at CVS) is nice, too.

I'd rather have a good quality milk chocolate than an el cheapo dark, though.

Perhaps it is, Joyce. Milk chocolate is sweeter than dark, which is maybe why kids prefer it. Dark chocolate is less sweet yet with a more intense chocolate taste.

Me too, I can eat just a small bit of dark and be satisfied whereas milk, it takes a bit more.

I know I'm gonna get blasted for this, but I don't see what the big deal is with chocolate.

Yes, I've had really good chocolate and there is absolutely a difference between that and Hershey's.

But given the choice between chocolate (or anything sweet) and pizza (or any italian food), I'm taking the pizza hands down anytime.

I've just never been a "sweet food" person.

Carey, no hate from me. Just one last person to fight for the last piece of pecan chocolate chip pie.

Lissa - yes, good milk chocolate is better than not good dark chocolate.

Mice actually prefer chocolate and peanut butter over cheese. One Fall, I had a mouse get inside my abode and it hunted down every random piece of chocolate in the place, no matter where it was. (chocolate chip granola bars in my hiking backpack, the odd hershey's kiss in an old purse, the chocolate my aunt brought from Ghana that I had stashed in a bag somewhere....) It didn't go after anything else, just the chocolate. Maybe it was depressed...

LJ, so much chocolate ... you must be single. I have a variety of mouse traps that you can use. Old Hershey's kisses in purses, I figured you to be younger than that. No probs, I like me some cougar. I'll kill your meeses.

Carey -- I'm with you; I like chocolate, but have always been able to pass it up. I am a sweets person, but I most like them filled with good fruit, and/or with a nice butter crust or pastry. EL, though, lives for chocolate.

Kate S. wrote EL, though, lives for chocolate. I'm sure there must be a gene for that.

I have thought for a long time that there was a gene for chocolate, and that it is a female gene. Men just don't get chocolate like women do!
With all the gene manipulation that scientists are playing with, they better NOT mess with that gene.
They could, however, remove the male gene that makes it impossible for a male to ask for directions.

Susan WSNAJ,

I'm a woman. So that theory's shot.

Of course I'm also unemotional, don't like kids, hate getting dressed up, and have no desire to get married.

I think while Susan may be partially right, the gene for chocolate is in some males too. My son would give up his Wii for good chocolate and has been known to eat my imported chocolates that he's bought me for mother's day.
There are also some females with "won't ask for directions" gene, my partner is one of them. She's rather drive around in circles, get more and more lost, be in the most dangerous part of town and yell at me. A GPS is going to be part of her Christmas present!

I think while Susan may be partially right, the gene for chocolate is in some males too. My son would give up his Wii for good chocolate and has been known to eat my imported chocolates that he's bought me for mother's day.
There are also some females with "won't ask for directions" gene, my partner is one of them. She's rather drive around in circles, get more and more lost, be in the most dangerous part of town and yell at me. A GPS is going to be part of her Christmas present!

RtSO said: Once Halloween is over, maybe Blogware will take off its Vista costume...

That's got to be the line of the day.

I like this new game that the blogware is making us play: future posts; duplicate posts (from folk who know better than to hit send multiple times) and the ever dreaded 'too many posts' notice.

Once Halloween is over, maybe Blogware will take off its Vista costume and get back to just being mildly irritating.

BTW, Ms W, does The Sixteen Year Old eat the chocolates before or after giving them to you?

RtSO - he eats them afterwards, of course. After all, it is a gift! He just figures that since I didn't eat the entire box in one sitting that the rest are "up for grabs". LOL!