The Calorie-Free Way to Make Food Taste Better: Penn State Study
Breathe in … Breathe out …
That’s all you need to do to make your food taste better, according to fascinating new research out of Penn State. The findings: breathing slowly and evenly helps your nose detect food particles, enhancing the smell and flavor.
They stumbled onto this nugget of biology with help from a 3D-printed model of a human airway. They wondered why food volatiles — that is, the compounds in food that are responsible for odor and flavor — wound up in the nasal cavity rather than in the lungs. So with their trusty human-airway model, they tested airflow from the nostril to trachea.
Here’s what they found:
Chewed food particles end up in the back of the mouth in a sort of side cavity to the main airflow. The researchers found that when air is inhaled through the nose, the air flow forms an air curtain to prevent volatile particles released from the back of the mouth from escaping into the lungs. However, when air is exhaled, it sweeps into the area with abundant food volatiles moving them into the nasal cavity where they are sensed by olfactory cells.
Neat, huh? The research team realized that airflow speed determines how much of the food particles those cells are able to detect. If you breathe through your nose slowly and evenly while you eat, you’ll maximize the smell and taste of your food.
Or, in the words of researcher Rui Ni, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State, “Food smells and tastes better if you take your time.”
Your takeaway? The slower, the better, when it comes to eating a meal. Oh, and don’t forget to breathe.
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