There may be a scientific explanation for cravings for fatty foods.
Most people know the 5 tastes: Sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and the lesser known umami. But now, scientists are reporting a sixth taste: fat. According to Northern Californian, scientists have discovered that “Oleogustus” which is Latin for “a taste for fat,” will join these other five.
This decision is not based on mere hypothesis. In order to distinguish a taste from a mere flavor, scientists conduct a very specific regimen of tests. A flavor must trigger “specific receptors on our taste buds,” and it must possess “a unique chemical signature.”
Fat is now being considered with regards to these criteria, and is being studied by Purdue University’s Professor of Nutrition Science, Rick Mattes. He has reported that the triglycerides in fat, “give the richness, the creaminess, viscosity and so on. But that is not the taste part. The taste part is when we cleave off part of that triglyceride, the fatty acid part.”
It is known that humans have fat receptors in their mouths. But it remains inconclusive whether or not the human palate can distinguish the taste of fat. In this study, scientists examined the tastes of 28 different samples of mixtures that were similar in appearance, but drastically different in taste. They discovered that over 50 percent of people in the study identified the mixtures with fatty acids, lending credence to the idea that humans can taste fat as well as saltiness or sweetness.