Taste Test

The senses of sight and taste are technically unrelated but they can have a strong psychological influence on each other. There are thousands of taste buds on your tongue, most being found on or between bumps called papillae which cover the tongue surface (you can just see these papillae with the naked eye). ‘Taste buds’ are actually chemo–receptor cells which each have a pit of a very specific shape. When a substance with the matching chemical shape comes along, the receptor cell sends a signal to the brain.

You’ll need:

Food colourings
Water
Rice/Potatoes/Noodles

The preparation:

Make some coloured food by cooking pasta, rice or potatoes in coloured water.

The activity:

Explain to a friend that you have added something in the cooking of one batch of a type of food, but not in the other, but do not show them the food. Blindfold your friend. Ask them to taste test both a normal and a coloured batch of the same foods. Ask them what they thought. Then, have them take the blindfold off and try the taste test again. Compile and compare the results. Typically, when blindfolded they will not report any difference in taste but when they can see the colour of what they were eating they will imagine tastes which were not there!