The science of spit is surprisingly deep. Emerging evidence suggests that interactions between saliva and food may even help to shape which foods we like to eat.
Saliva can adapt to an individual’s diet to neutralize bitter flavors. “If you eat broccoli all the time, broccoli doesn’t taste bad to you,” explains a researcher.
Saliva also plays a star role in our perceptions of texture. Take astringency, that dry feeling that happens in the mouth when you drink red wine or eat unripe fruit. The wine doesn’t actually make your mouth drier. Instead, molecules called tannins in the wine can cause proteins to precipitate out of the saliva so that it no longer lubricates as effectively.
Sarkar’s research uses a mechanical tongue, bathed in artificial saliva, as a way to simulate what happens as food moves through the mouth and how that influences the sensory experience of eating. A smoothie with lower fat, Sarkar says, might look creamy at first glance but will lack that textural luxuriousness fat provides upon mixing with saliva.
Oral biochemist Elsa Lamy of the University of Évora in Portugal investigated this by blindfolding volunteers, letting them smell a piece of bread for about four minutes, while monitoring their saliva for changes. Two types of protein, starch-digesting amylases and others called cystatins that have been linked to taste sensitivity and perception, increased after exposure to the bread, she found.
In another experiment, Torregrossa used catheters to transfer saliva collected from rats that were accustomed to eating bitter diets into the mouths of rats that were not. The naive animals became, despite their lack of exposure. But control animals that weren’t supplied with the pumped-in, bitterness-tolerant saliva proteins still rejected the bitter food.
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