How good are your food detectors?

Your Tantalizing Taste Test Kit Includes

2 Test Cups 1 Blindfold 1 Nose Clip

You Will Need

1 Friend

Favourite Food Game

2 Types of Drink(Apple juice, orange

juice, milk, water, etc.)

How To Use Your Tantalizing Taste Test Kit

Directions

Your TantalizingTaste Test Kit

Step 1: Ask your friend which of the two drinks he/she prefers. Have your friend wear the blindfold.

Step 2: Fill the bottom of each test cup with one of the two drinks.

Step 3: Have your friend taste the two drinks. Have him/her choose the preferred drink.

Step 4: Show your friend which drink he/she actually prefers!

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The Science Behind Your Favourite Food Game

Scientists tested how sight affects the way your brain “tastes” food. They found that people prefer food that has a certain color regardless of how it tastes. Your eyes tell your brain what food will taste like before it goes in your mouth! This blindfold test lets your tongue and nose – taste and smell – work together to taste the real flavor of the food you eat.

Item # BP0164 © 2012 The Mad Science Group. All rights reserved.

Fun Fact:Fun Fact:When a smelly molecule lands inside your nostrils, it triggers a chemical change that is passed as a smell signal to your nerves, and then your brain!

Fun Fact:Fun Fact:Your tongue is used for more than just tasting. When you chew, your tongue moves food around and pushes it to the back of your mouth for you to swallow!

Directions

The Nose Knows

1 Friend2 Types of FoodYour TantalizingTaste Test Kit

What's Going On?

Your sense of smell is 10,000 times stronger than your sense of taste!

Fun Fact:Fun Fact:How well can you taste with a plugged nose?

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Step 1: Have your friend wear the blindfold and the nose plug.

Step 2: Place one sample of food in each of the test cups.

Step 3: Have your friend taste the food in one cup and then try to identify it.

Step 4: Have your friend taste the food in the other cup and then try to identify it.

Step 5: Fill the two cups again with the same samples of food.

Step 6: Have your friend remove the nose plug and taste the two samples again. Can he/she identify the food without the nose plug?

Your nose can smell more than 10,000 different scents. The cells in your nose that detect smells are called olfactory receptors. Each olfactory receptor comes from a gene in your DNA. If a gene is missing or damaged, you may be unable to smell a certain scent. For example, some people have no sense for the smell of camphor, which is used as an insect repellent. Your nose helps you taste by smelling food before you eat it and as you chew and swallow it. Wearing a blindfold and a nose plug means you can only taste with your tongue. You taste a lot less when you have a plugged nose – like when you have a cold – or when you cannot see your food!

When you are enjoying delicious pizza, it's actually the smell and taste combined that makes it so good! When you are sick and your nose is stuffy, your foodwill taste different becauseyou can't smell it.

Fun Fact:Fun Fact:

Item # BP0164 © 2012 The Mad Science Group. All rights reserved.

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