Taste is the oldest of our five senses, and yet perhaps the least understood. It's far more complicated than salty versus sweet: new research is dramatically expanding our knowledge of taste, showing that it's intimately connected to obesity, mood, immunity, and more. In this episode, we get into the science of how taste works, why we taste what we do, and what makes supertasters unique. And finally, we hack our taste buds—for fun, but, in the future, maybe for health, too. (encore) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It's the season of giving.
And we have a little extra gift for you this week.
An encore presentation of one of our very favorite episodes, Hacking Taste.
It's all about what we can taste and why, and whether we can tweak it or, you know, hack it.
And speaking of giving, don't forget, if you enjoy the show and if you're able to support it this year, it would mean the world to us.
And of course, a huge thanks from us to all of you who already support the show and help make it possible.
Enjoy.
All right.
One, two, three.
Oh, it's like lemonade.
What?
Why is this so delicious?
What the hell?
Wait.
What have you done to me?
Nikki and I were on tour with a show called Pop Up Magazine.
And during one of the rehearsals, a handful of the crew and performers let us put red pills on their tongues without having any idea what they were tasting, taking, and what they were in for.
Hey, we're good people, and it's not like we didn't do it ourselves.
But I must admit, it was amazing how easy it was to get people to take pills without telling them what they were.
We'll tell you what those pills were later on, but for now, what you need to know is that we were screwing with their taste buds.