By: Kimberly C., Vincent, and Kimberly K.
You have 10,000 taste buds on your tongue. When you eat a piece of food a message is sent up to your brain to figure out the taste. As food is chewed it mixes with a watery liquid in the mouth called saliva.
There are four basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, and salty.
Everybody has a taste and smell they like or dislike.
Our sense of taste and smell can warn us about the foods we eat. Is it too hot or too cold? Has the milk become sour?
Our sense of smell can warn us about danger, too. If you smell gas or smoke, it could lead to fire.
There are many types of smells. The brain puts together messages from the taste buds and nasal cavity, allowing us to make out many flavors.
Our sense of taste and smell can be affected by many things. If your nose is stuffed up because of a cold or allergy, you often cannot smell anything properly. You probably cannot taste the flavor of your food.
Injury to the nose from a fall or sport accident can affect your sense of smell. If the nerves that carry messages from the nose to the brain are damaged, the sense of smell will be much less, and in some cases may be destroyed completely.
Smoking cigarettes can also damage the lining of the nasal cavity. It cannot respond to chemicals from the cigarette, so the sense of smell is reduced.
As people get older their receptor cells are replaced less often, so their sense of taste and smell gradually become less acute. This partly explains why babies and young children often prefer plain foods and why spicy foods taste much stranger to them than adults.
An ancient form of medicine, which has become popular today, is aromatherapy. It is highly perfumed oils from plants. This is used to treat many illnesses and aches and pains. People can rub the scented oils into their skin, or add a few drops to their bath, or even make up a strong -smelling liquid and breathe the vapor. Ask your mom if she has an aromatherapy candle. You might be surprised!
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