Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter, Protein ... and Now Fat

ral writes "The human tongue can taste more than sweet, sour, salty, bitter and protein. Researchers have added fat to that list. Dr. Russell Keast, an exercise and nutrition sciences professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, told Slashfood, 'This makes logical sense. We have sweet to identify carbohydrate/sugars, and umami to identify protein/amino acids, so we could expect a taste to identify the other macronutrient: fat.' In the Deakin study, which appears in the latest issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, Dr. Keast and his team gave a group of 33 people fatty acids found in common foods, mixed in with nonfat milk to disguise the telltale fat texture. All 33 could detect the fatty acids to at least a small degree."

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Re:The Bastard Broadcasting Company had a doc on i

[infaustus]

Energy enters neurons almost exclusively as sugars. In the rare situations when adequate carbohydrates are unavailable, neurons can survive off of ketone bodies from fats elsewhere in the body, but this is a last resort and ketone bodies have poisonous byproducts. In this context, saying "the brain is fueled by carbohydrates" is true and meaningful, saying it runs on fat is mostly false, and saying it runs on ATP is not meaningful and sort of dickish.