Why does the taste of food vary when it is cold and hot?

Perhaps everyone had to be staring at the fridge on a cold Sunday morning and just felt happy when they realized there were still a few slices of leftover pizza in the night before or a few hours earlier. In that desperate moment, any food is welcome but the cold pieces of pizza are not the same as what we enjoyed the night before. The ingredients are the same: pepperoni, cheese, jalapeños and olives but you still feel "missing" something to create the same taste as the night before.

Why does temperature make a difference in the taste of such foods?

Short answer: People in their development process often prefer to eat hotter than cold because it saves a lot of time for other things, helps us absorb more nutrients and protects the body from diseases. Theoretically, the perception of our taste buds increases with hot food, as opposed to the feeling of eating cold food (because it stimulates tiny channels in our taste).

From cold food to hot food

A few million years ago, before humans discovered fire, every food was in a cold state (understood in a way not cooked) like every animal on the planet. Eating raw food was the only option, but about 2 million years ago, Homo erectus discovered the magic of fire and since then our evolutionary trajectory has changed. Primate species can create fire to cook, avoid enemies, bring good sleep and motivate our brains to evolve into today's state.

This is one of the first major efforts of people to change certain biological tasks - namely chewing and digesting cold food - and releasing a large amount of time. Basically, it takes a lot of time to digest cold food because it relies only on saliva and gastric juice. Basic hot food is digested first, due to the heat reaction of the fire.

The creation of heat and use for cooking causes a chemical reaction that changes food, changes the basic nature of meat, grains and vegetables to make them easier to digest. Think of a cow, with the stomach consisting of many bags - where food must return to the mouth to chew before it can be completely digested. Heating food helps to digest faster so we have time to focus on other important things. In fact, our bodies cannot fully control the raw meat diet: We don't have enough stomach acid (an evolutionary factor in the past 2 million years).

By cooking food, we increase the amount of calories absorbed from food. Studies show that people can get about 30% more energy from cooked meat and more than 90% if they're beans or starches because our digestive system can almost instantly absorb calories from cooked food.

In addition to being easier to digest, cooking can eliminate many food-borne illnesses and provide a sense of comfort to the senses when enjoying them. When you heat food, molecules become more volatile - they fly away from food in the form of aroma. Therefore, the senses of the body sense this smell and encourage the body to consume healthier foods (cooked). In particular, some foods like meat, vegetables and beans taste better when we cook them.

However, these do not fully explain the meaning of flavor, meaning why cooked foods tend to taste better than cold foods?

A lot of research has gone into hobby and smell, because manufacturers want to dig deeper into the flavors that can attract consumers. They also find ways to hide as unpleasant and all affect our taste.

When this process ends, small channels in our taste buds - People perceive the taste of food primarily through taste buds on the tongue. Each taste bud contains about 50 - 100 taste-sensing cells, which help convey feelings to the brain - sending cues related to taste to the brain and tend to work harder at high temperatures. Food and water with umami taste, sour taste and sweetness often create a stronger feeling when they are warm (including good and bad flavors). The exception is a bitter and bitter case, they seem to become more pronounced than cold.

For example, people like their coffee hot because the bitter taste of this drink is better concealed when they heat up. On the other hand, when considering something like ice cream, the sweet taste is only activated when the cream starts melting in the mouth, not when we lick up the cold chocolate or mint ice cream. Small receptor channels in our tongue - helping to bring flavor messages - don't work well with cold foods.

There are over 10,000 taste buds on the tongue and each bud consists of 50 to 100 cells, all of which can detect all kinds of flavors - salty, sour, sweet, bitter and umami (umami is made up of the master). weak by a substance called glutamate - an ingredient that makes up the protein in the bodies of living organisms Glutamate is abundant in many foods such as meat, poultry, seafood, vegetables, milk, Fermented sauce (fish sauce, soy sauce .), monosodium glutamate .).

Some foods are preferred when cold, such as soda, while others are often used when hot like tea and cocoa. Hot food does not mean that it will be better but usually it will give a richer flavor. Obviously, the juice of the South Vietnamese fruit has a slight aroma but when it is heated it will have a heavier and more unpleasant odor.

Knowing more about this delicate balance and the cognitive process of taste helps food scientists develop new ways to mimic flavor and can improve health when we do it. Diet.

In the process of evolution, our taste buds grow primarily to like warmer foods, as well as in finding stronger and more rewarding flavors. So, the pizza in the fridge will become richer if you take it easy and turn on the oven for a few minutes.