You are here  Eat Better By Understanding Taste and Smell
Understanding how the taste and smell of food combines could
help us eat better.  Pinch your nose while drinking your
favorite beer, and you will hardly taste anything. This simple
experiment shows that taste and smell both play a role in what
we sense in the mouth as flavor.  Before there were food labels,
we relied upon taste and smell to tell us what was safe to eat.
Sweet and salty meant that food was full of much-needed
nutrients. Sour or bitter signaled poison or danger.
Researchers from Oregon State University discovered that when we
eat something with matching odor and taste—such as vanilla and
sugar—the sense of flavor happens in the mouth.  This single
sensation occurs as a result of the way our brain processes
information from its separate taste and smell centers. A third
area in the brain combines taste and smell, and sends it back to
the tongue as flavor sensed in the mouth.  With mismatched odor
and taste—like vanilla and salt—there is