1999 Gallup Report

In a 1999 Gallup poll, it was revealed that 20% of Americans think that the sun revolves around the earth (Danello, 2011). It is startling that nearly 5 centuries after Copernicus discoveries a large portion of population still has such a misconception. In fact, there are many misconceptions we encounter on an everyday basis. Examples of these misconceptions include the idea that we only use 10% of our brain and the idea that lightning never strikes twice the same place. Two other common misconceptions come from our sense of taste and they relate to areas of tasting and taste buds.
I grew up looking at pictures that showed how different parts of the tongue detected the different types of tastes. I remember it suggested that the tip was responsible

for detecting the sugary foods and then with colors pointed out the other taste regions. This is completely wrong. Every single taste bud can detect al five flavors: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and umami (meaty, savory). All these basic five tastes can be sense everywhere in the tongue where there are receptors as opposed to the different places to different flavors idea.
Another misconception we might have when we see the little bumps in our tongue is to think they are taste buds. The actual taste buds are inside these bumpy structures call Papillae. The function of these small rounded projections is to increase the surface area of the tongue, not detecting flavors. There exists three types of Papillae in different places of the tongue but they can all sense the five flavors. They differ only in their relative ability to detect the strengths of different flavors.
The taste buds lie inside the Papillae lining on its sides. They are made of taste receptors that receive their stimuli form saliva. The sour and salty flavors are detected because of the ions acting on the taste cells ion channels. The bitter and sweet flavors are received by specialized molecules that activate second messengers inside the taste cells. The umami flavor is detected by two different special receptors that respond to the amino acids in protein.
The majority of the foods we eat and flavors we experience are a combination of these five basic tastes and the odor that comes from what we are tasting. Because our gustatory system can only detect five flavors, what we taste is heavily supported by the almost ten thousand different odors we can smell. It doesn´t matter if you are tasting it only with the tip of your tongue you are going to get the full flavor as long as you are also smelling what you are eating.
All the inputs of the flavors are then transduced and processed in the brain. The processing is very simple as there are only five options for flavors and no complex patterns. It´s called a labeled-line system because of that. It can be pictured as an assembly line that just gives a label to each input received. Then, adds the corresponding number from the 5 basic flavors to get a final “sum” that represents the taste as a whole, as a weighted sum of the individual components.
Maybe next time you eat you can yourself confirm many of this information. First, taste the food with different parts of the tongue. And then, taste your food with your nose closed and see what the differences are. You are probably going to see how different senses complement each other.