SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

HOw to boost the power of your senses. This week: Brain tricks to improve taste THE brain plays a complex role in how things taste to us.

‘Taste is partly related to expectation, so doing all you can to maximise expectation will intensify taste,’ says Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford. Food tastes sweeter on a round plate, for instance, as we associate the shape with desserts.

Other ways to boost your expectation of taste include cooking from scratch and removing lids from takeaway coffee cups before you drink, to enhance smell (which accounts for up to 90 per cent of our sensation of taste).

That said, keeping your tongue clean can boost how well you taste. Using a scraper twice daily for two weeks reduced furring and improved taste, according to a 2004 study published in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology.