The nose is the first part of our body to identify the flavour of food. Think about it – the smell alone of freshly baked cookies tells us we’re in for a treat. One bite later, our sense of taste kicks in, making the experience even sweeter.

There is a reason that children tend to be fussier eaters than adults: their sense of taste is more acute. As we get older we actually start to lose taste buds along with our sense of smell: strong flavours and spicier foods become more appealing.

Here are some other fun activities that show how our sense of smell and taste pair up to make eating so appetising.

1. Pour out three small glasses of different flavoured drinks such as fruit punch, lemonade and a lime drink.
2. Fill a fourth glass with a clear soda and stir in a little food colouring to tint it orange.
3. Now ask some children to taste and identify all of the flavours.

Odds are, they will think the coloured drink is orange soda.

1. Prepare two cups of cocoa from scratch
2. Stirring just a bit of salt into one.
3. Ask the children to taste both and then tell you which one they think is sweeter.

In all probability they’ll choose the salted one. Salt actually enhances the flavour of sugar because the sweet and salty receptors of the tongue which are adjacent to each other are both being stimulated!

Trick Your Buds
Without the taste buds on our tongues and our sense of smell, we couldn’t tell the difference between jelly beans and runner beans. Specific areas of the tongue specialise in four tastes – sweet, salty, sour and bitter.

1. For fun, slice up a grapefruit and a banana.
2. Referring to the illustration on the Jelly Belly Taste Test, ask the children to lightly touch different parts of their tongue with a segment of the grapefruit.
3. The taste will be most distinct on the sour sections.
4. After either a mouth rinse or a glass of water, ask them to do the same with a piece of banana.
5. This time, the fruit is bound to taste best on the sweet section – rather like ice cream does when we lick it from the cone!

What If It Doesn’t Make Sense?
Think of something that smells delicious, like sizzling bacon. Then consider this: the airborne molecules from that food stimulate nerve cells in our nose, that in turn trigger our brain to recognise the flavour – in this case, the frying (or should we say flying!) bacon.

1. To see how our sense of smell aids our ability to taste, ask the children to shut their eyes and hold their nose while sampling peeled, paper thin slices of pear, apples and potato. Chances are, they won’t taste the difference!
2. Blindfold some of the children and give them bite-size cubes of apple and raw potato. Can they tell the difference ? Invariably – yes they can.
3. Then hold a slice of onion under their nose – make sure they take a deep breath of it!
4. Now give them the apple and potato again and ask them to tell the difference.
5. The smell of the onion will almost certainly have confused their taste buds!