October 29th, 2011 by Medgadget in Research
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Researchers have successfully tested the abilities of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) to function as a so called “magnetic tongue”. Antonio Randazzo, Anders Malmendal, Ettoro Novellino and their team reported their findings in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Sensing the smell and flavor of food is a very complex physiological and cognitive process. A food’s components and the taster’s experience at the moment of tasting influence the process. To be able to objectively measure the sensory descriptor, one needs human sensory tests not involving persons as taste testers. Examples of human sensory tests currently used are the electronic nose and the electronic tongue. Current instruments can only Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
August 17th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Health Tips, Research
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Attention, pregnant women! The foods you eat now might influence your babies’ palates after they are born. New research published in the journal Pediatrics, shows that the fetus actually drinks amniotic fluid in the womb. The amniotic fluid is flavored by the foods the mother has recently eaten and flavors can be transmitted to the amniotic fluid and mother’s milk.
It makes sense that as the baby is developing, memories are being created by a sense of taste. Could what a mother eats influence food preferences and odor preferences for life? Researchers fed babies cereal flavored with carrot juice vs. water. They showed that babies who experienced daily carrots in amniotic fluid or mother’s milk ate more carrot-flavored cereal and made less negative faces when eating it.
Julie Mennella studies taste in infants at the Monell Chemical Senses Center (Philadelphia) and she says Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
