What Flavor is Your Jelly Bean?

Try this tasty experiment to learn how we experience flavors!

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Have you ever seen a dog wolf down his dinner?

Sure, he’s hungry, but he’s also excited about the flavors in his food. Flavors are what make eating pleasurable, fun, and satisfying.

 

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Humans experience even more flavors than animals - thousands in fact.

But what, exactly, causes the experience of flavor? Is flavor just the taste of something, or is it something more?

 
 

The Five Tastes

Scientists have identified and agreed upon five basic tastes, but it is possible there are more. Here are the tastes we know about now:

Umami is also sometimes called savory.

So if there are only five tastes, but thousands of flavors, what in the world is a flavor? Read on to solve the taste flavor mystery!

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But first, watch this super cool video from MOFAD’s very first exhibition, Flavor: Making It and Faking It, to learn about the science that makes flavor happen

Then try MOFAD’s Jelly Bean Flavor Experiment with friends and family to experience this phenomenon for yourselves.

 

 How to do the jelly bean flavor experiment:

The only things needed to do the experiment are people (at least two) and jelly beans (a few for each person). Choose one person to be the scientist. This person will run the experiment and will be in charge of the jelly beans. Everyone else will be the test participants.

Scientist, follow the steps below as you conduct the experiment:

  • Close your eyes.

  • Don't peek.

  • Hold out your hand. Scientist, put one jelly bean in each person's hand.

  • Hide the jelly bean in your hand.

  • Or put it in your pocket.

  • You can open your eyes now.

  • Pinch your nose closed so you can't smell the jelly bean.

  • Put the jelly bean in your mouth – but don't chew!

  • Swirl the jelly bean around in your mouth and...

  • Say what taste you are experiencing.

  • Ok, you can start to chew, but don't swallow.

  • Keep chewing and un-pinch your nose – what happened?

  • Talk about it together using the discussion questions below.

Discussion Questions:

  • Why do you think participants in the experiment were asked not to look at their jelly bean?

  • Why do you think participants had to pinch their nostrils tightly shut for almost the whole time?

  • What happened when participants stopped pinching their nostrils and kept chewing the jelly bean? What was that like? Why did it happen?

  • What is the difference between taste and flavor?

  • What other things could influence how we experience flavor besides the senses?

More fascinating flavor facts:

To learn more about the science of flavor and the history of the flavor industry, check out this recap of MOFAD’s 2015 exhibition Flavor: Making It and Faking It. Get ready for lots more videos, science, and flavorful surprises!

Photo Credits:

Photo of girl holding nose created by freepik - www.freepik.com

All other slideshow photos available on Pexels.com by the following artists:

Chokniti Khongchum, Foodie Factor, Marcelo Chagas, Ketut Subiyanto, pixabay, Dellon Thomas, nappy, Pexen Design, Andrea Piacquadio