ACS ChemClub 2015 Virtual Party Resource Packet
Chemistry—Hacking Your Taste Buds
Figure Out the Flavor
Student Handout
Think you could correctly identify the flavor of a Life Savers® hard candy? What if you were only allowed to use your sense of taste—with your nose plugged and your eyes closed? Easy? Hard? Impossible? Would adding the sense of smell help? What if you were allowed to use taste, smell, and sight? Flavor brings together the senses, combining mainly smell, plus taste. Things like temperature, texture, and color can also affect how we perceive the flavor of foods.
In this activity, your challenge is to correctly identify the flavor of a hard candy. How many senses will it take?
Materials
· Individually wrapped Life Savers® hard candies
· Nose plug (or, participant can plug his or her nose with fingers)
· Blindfold (or, participant can close eyes when needed)
Activity
This activity must be done in a food-safe environment rather than a chemistry laboratory, since participants will be eating and tasting food products. Students with food allergies should confirm they are able to safely perform this experiment with the foods used.
The person doing the tasting should not be allowed to see the hard candies or their packages before or during the activity, except where noted in step 5.
You will need a partner for this activity.
1. The person who is doing the tasting will put on a blindfold and nose clip. (Or, plug your nose with your fingers and close your eyes. No peeking!) After this, your partner should read the steps out loud to you and give you the needed items.
2. Your non-blindfolded partner should select one Life Savers® hard candy and make note of its color and flavor. (He or she may need to consult the instructor—the advisor’s guide contains information for possible flavors of the Life Savers® candy included with the virtual party materials.)
3. Your partner should hand you the piece of candy. Place it in your mouth. From your observations using your sense of taste, what flavor do you think the candy is? Tell your partner, so he or she can record your answer.
4. Leave the candy in your mouth. Now, remove the nose clip or let go of your nose. From your observations using your sense of taste along with smell, what flavor do you think the candy is? Tell your partner, so he or she can record your answer.
5. Take off the blindfold or open your eyes. Take the piece of candy out of your mouth and look at its color. Place the candy back in your mouth and taste it again. From your observations using taste, smell, and sight, what flavor do you think the candy is? Tell your partner, so he or she can record your answer.
Questions
1. Did you identify the flavor of the candy correctly using just the sense of taste?
2. Did you identify the flavor of the candy correctly using the senses of taste and smell?
3. Did you identify the flavor of the candy using the senses of taste, smell, and sight?
4. Which sense do you think was most important for figuring out the candy’s flavor? Explain.
5. How could you have been able to know that the candy was a Life Savers® hard candy, if you had not known at the start of the activity and didn’t look at it?
6. What information contributes to what we perceive as the flavor of a food?
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Lab–Student: Flavor, pg