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It happens from time to time: you feel terrible when you
take your first bite of a certain food, but after eating more, you find
yourself enjoying it. This is what is called an acquired taste. But why
do our tastes change?
The answer, according to a recent study presented at an
American Chemical Society meeting in Boston, lies in proteins in our saliva (唾液).
Most of us tend to think saliva, almost entirely made up of
water, is “only a mouth lubricant (润滑剂) helping us to swallow food,” the New
York Times said. However, it also contains many proteins, which can help break
food down, protect our teeth and help in tasting food.
To explain how these proteins affect taste, a team of
scientists from Purdue University in the US invited 64 volunteers to drink a
bitter-tasting chocolate milk three times a day for six weeks and rated their
tastes at the same time.
According to the research, the participants found a strong
bitterness on the first day, but the unpleasant flavor came to decrease as time
went on and finally disappeared.
That is not all that was changing. A noticeable increase in
the levels of proline-rich (富含脯氨酸的) proteins was found in the saliva
samples of the test subjects in the research period. These proteins serve to
reduce the bitterness we taste and improve our adaptation to this flavor.
“We think the body adapts to reduce the negative feeling of
these bitter compounds,” said Cordelia Running, a food scientist at Purdue
University. “Saliva changes flavor, which in turn changes eating choices.”
This change in taste not only makes the food tastier, but
also helps people keep an appetite for healthy food whose flavor might
otherwise keep them away.
One day, these proteins may even be extracted (提炼) and used as a separate food additive
that could help people stick to healthy food whose flavor they continue to
dislike, researchers told Science Alert. And according to Running, even it
doesn't happen, the idea that “maybe some little piece of your body is actually
trying to help you” could really benefit some people. Let's wait and see.