Food and enjoyment go together and the taste of food is a pathway to the good life. The taste of food is a constant in our lives, from cradle to grave, and even though our senses may become less acute as we age, the daily meals are occasions that give us the most, and the most lasting, pleasure. We employ all our senses when we eat and mouthfeel is an important part of that overall sensory experience.
It is quite possible to get by with food that is mushy, provided it has the right nutritional content. However, it is hard to imagine that one would like this kind of food for an extended period of time—for example, in the form of fluid food in tubes on a year-long space journey.
Food and its taste are closely bound to us as human beings, in evolutionary, physiological, and cultural ways. The preparation of food using fire, which was adopted by our ancestors some 1.9 million years ago, revolutionized our nutritional intake; and that, in turn, allowed us to have sufficient energy to develop a large brain. It liberated us from the necessity of chewing on raw food all day long and freed up time to create families and build social structures. Cooking became a driving force and cohesive element in our cultures.
Even though as a species we are far removed from the situation in which the great apes still find themselves of having to spend six to eight hours a day chewing, we are nevertheless able to appreciate the value that is added to eating by the physical act of mastication and the mechanical manipulation of food in the mouth.
This is reflected in the way in which our daily meals are structured. In the morning, we turn to lighter food—for example, yogurt, eggs, and white bread—all easy to chew and to swallow. At lunch, we seek out a little more structure on the plate, turning to heavier breads, salads, soups, and possibly a light hot dish. When dinnertime arrives, we take time to eat more challenging food and select a broader range of ingredients, such as meat and a variety of vegetables. To prepare for the more demanding work involved in chewing, we might start with an appetizer that has only a little structure and is easy to eat, but that gets the salivary juices to start flowing. The main dish usually requires more intense and time-consuming chewing. This is when it is most difficult to observe the rule about not speaking with a full mouth. At the end of the meal, we can choose a dessert that does not require as much mechanical manipulation but is a source of more interesting, and possibly surprising, textures, such as creaminess and sponginess paired with a contrasting crunchiness.
Texture not only is an important parameter of appetizing food that has a good mouthfeel, but also can be a factor in preparing delicious food that contains less fat and sugar, thereby reducing its calorie content. Some researchers think that food that has a coarser texture and a great deal of fiber is more filling. Other researchers have put forward the hypothesis, supported by experiments using mice, that the act of chewing serves to improve memory functions and reduce the risk of dementia. This sheds new light on the importance of good oral hygiene. Our lifelong attempts to keep our own teeth in healthy condition bears witness to how much we value being able to chew our food. We do not undertake regular dental checkups simply for cosmetic reasons or to promote oral health, but also because, even though we could survive on a liquid diet, we actually enjoy chewing on something that has a good mouthfeel. Only a few decades ago, we naively thought that in some futuristic, highly technological society we could dispense with meals and simply swallow a few pills or squeeze a little food out of a tube. We now reject these scenarios as having little appeal.
Having a good understanding of taste can help us to meet one of the major global challenges that face humanity: how to secure sufficient food for a growing population on a planet with limited resources. Much of our food production is inefficient with respect to the optimal utilization of the raw ingredients. A good example is protein from fish and vegetable sources, which we cycle through domestic animals to produce meat. On the one hand, 80–95 percent of the protein content is lost in the process, but on the other hand, many enjoy eating meat and savoring its particular textures.
It will become necessary in the future to find more effective ways to make use of the original protein sources. One possibility is to transform plant protein directly into solids that have a meatlike texture, as has traditionally been done in the case of tofu, seitan, pasta, or bread. These products utilize up to 90 percent of the available proteins.
We need to learn to value more highly the texture of fish and shellfish, including the many species that we currently choose not to eat. The latter are simply allowed to go to waste, turned into fish meal for use at fish farms, or made into fodder for domestic animals, which are then converted into animal fats and proteins. This is also the case with the valuable omega-3 fats in fish, which are partially lost in the course of this process.
Knowledge of taste, especially mouthfeel, can help us increase our understanding of ourselves as humans. Why we eat the food that we do and how we deal with food in the way that we do, both in the kitchen and in the mouth. Knowledge of taste can make us aware that the sense of taste is located in the brain, where it is registered as a complex interaction between the multimodal sensory perception of food coupled to memory, what we already know or have experienced, and a reward system. In this way, taste is also linked to tradition, culture, and social relationships.
Knowledge of food can help us understand why we sometimes eat too much or the wrong things. New discoveries in the field of neurogastronomy show how the brain associates delicious taste with nutrition and calories. This information can guide us toward making healthier choices, thereby possibly averting diet-related problems, especially obesity and associated illnesses, such as diabetes and heart disease. Knowledge about taste can also inform us how best to handle our strong desire for those foods that we should eat in moderation, and in that way, help curb our overindulging in them.
But first and foremost, knowledge of taste and especially mouthfeel can provide us with the tools for preparing healthier and tastier meals, strengthening the enjoyment and pleasure inherent in one of our most fundamental life forces: the need to eat.