3 External Factors That Influence Your Taste and Flavor in Life!

If you asked a group of people how to influence taste and flavor, I bet many would simply say ‘add salt and sugar’.

What if I told you that wasn’t even the tip of the tip of the iceberg?

There are many culinary techniques that transform tastes and flavors (which I won’t go into now), and there are other non-culinary techniques that can make a world of difference.

This is where you will be taken on a walk to the wild side.

External Factors That Affect Taste and Flavor

Below we will go into examples of external factors that affect taste and flavor. There are also a host of internal factors as well.

The following influences your experience of taste – whether you are a physically active individual, your age, your emotional state of being, whether or not you have a vitamin or mineral deficiency, and more.

1. Visual Flavor

When subjects were asked to drink a beverage that was orange in color - and was actually cherry flavor - they said it tasted like an orange beverage.

This same result occurred when subjects who were blind were given a description of the drink.

Charles Spence coined this phenomenon “visual flavor”; we expect the color of the food or beverage that we consume to match with the color, even when it doesn’t.

2. Thermogustation

The temperature at which a food is served has a strong influence on its taste.

Experience it yourself: Scoop some ice cream into a bowl; take a taste. How sweet was it?

Now let the scoop melt. Taste it again. How sweet is it now?

Sweet taste is very sensitive to temperature, as the temperature rises there is an increase in the perception of sweetness.

3. Sonic Seasoning

Play music with high tones and take a bite of chocolate; take a break and sip water.

Now play music with low tones and take another bite of chocolate. Did it taste the same?

It’s best to do this exercise with your eyes closed. High-pitched sounds bring out the sweet notes in chocolate whereas low tones bring out the bitter notes.

Does hearing the crunch affect flavor?

Now let’s try another experiment that demonstrates that you need to hear a crunch to register that the food is fresh.

Eat something crunchy (chips or crackers for example), observe, now plug your ears and eat it again. What was your experience? Did you enjoy the chip or cracker more when you could hear the crunch?

Yes, you can influence a person’s experience of taste and flavor!

I hope you are getting the sense that besides culinary techniques, there is a lot that you can do to influence a person’s experience of taste and flavor. There is nothing you can do with an unappetizing meal, but there is a lot that you can do with an appetizing meal to add extra layers of input.

You are invited to join me for a LIVE event with Rouxbe on September 26. Click above to view details!