Scientists aim to let you taste what’s on TV

WATCHING celebrity chefs like Nigella Lawson or Gordon Ramsay whip up a culinary creation on television can set viewers’ taste buds tingling.

Now they could soon be able to sample the food for themselves — with the help of new technology that can electronically recreate tastes.

Scientists have developed a simulator that uses electrodes to stimulate the taste buds to reproduce salt, sweet, sour and bitter sensations. The Digital State Interface also uses subtle changes in temperature to alter the taste experience.

The researchers hope the system could eventually be used to enable viewers to experience tastes while watching their favourite programmes.

Dr Nimesha Ranasinghe, an engineer at the National University of Singapore, said it could also be used in computer games or to enable people to share meals over the internet.

His team is also working on a digital lollipop that can produce all the sweet enjoyment of a real piece of confectionery, but without the harm to teeth or risk of putting on weight. “Digital taste is a technology for digitally simulating the sensation of taste,” he said.

“It uses two methods — electrical stimulation and thermal stimulation to stimulate the tip of the human tongue noninvasively to produce primary taste sensations such as salty, sour, sweet, bitter.

“By manipulating the magnitude of current, frequency and temperature — both heating and cooling — thus far salty, sour and bitter sensations have been successfully generated.

“Simulating food is one of the future directions of this technology.”

Previous attempts to create “taste TV” have largely been unsuccessful because research has concentrated on using chemicals released by a computer.

This means such technology requires a large reservoir of chemicals to produce different tastes that can be mixed together and would need to be regularly replenished.

Using electrodes enables tastes to be sent digitally without the need for messy and expensive chemical interfaces.

Ranasinghe said: “Using chemicals in an interactive system is unrealistic because a set of chemicals

The colour of food and the way it sounds as we eat can influence the way it tastes

is difficult to store and manipulate.

“Furthermore, the chemical stimulation of taste is analogous in nature, making it impractical to use this approach for digital interactions.

“Therefore, it is evident that a new non-chemical approach is required to achieve digital control over the sensation of taste.”

However, Ranasinghe and his colleagues have yet to be able to replicate another crucial savoury taste, umami, and other research has found a sixth basic taste for fat.

Flavour also relies heavily on other important factors such as smell and texture.

Odour accounts for the bulk of the sensation when we eat food.

Scientists have also found that the colour of food and the way it sounds as we eat can also influence the way food tastes. —