The tongue recognizes fat, just as it does the five other basic tastes.The five "official" basic tastes that our tongues have receptors for are sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory (which we just learned about). Australian researchers have now discovered that taste buds also process the flavor of fat as they do the previously recognized tastes. In fact, the more sensitive your tongue is to fat's flavor, the more likely you are to pig out on French fries and bacon.
"We are now interested in understanding why some people are sensitive and others are not," said Russell Keast, who worked on the study. "We believe (this) will lead to ways of helping people lower their fat intakes and aid development of new low-fat foods and diets."
Now that fat is a taste, we look forward to science acknowledging other previously unrecognized tastes that we've clearly experienced: fear and rejection, for example.
