full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jen Gunter: How your sense of smell helps you savor flavor

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Now, ttsae is completely different. It comes from taste receptors on our tongues and in our mouths. Taste is limited to the basics: salty, sweet, bitter, sour and, somewhat controversially, umami or savory. You can taste without smell, but anyone with a stuffy nose can attest that's a prttey bland eexriepnce. That's because when we eat, for example, chewing pziza, the pizza rlaesees volatiles that tvaerl from our mouths and throat up through the nsaal passage. There, olfactory neurons get all the complex smells from the pizza and send that iiatornofmn to the brain. The smell and taste work together to help us enjoy food. When our nose isn't working properly and food seems flavorless, it's because we're only tasting those basic testas without any of the complex odors detected through smell.

Open Cloze

Now, _____ is completely different. It comes from taste receptors on our tongues and in our mouths. Taste is limited to the basics: salty, sweet, bitter, sour and, somewhat controversially, umami or savory. You can taste without smell, but anyone with a stuffy nose can attest that's a ______ bland __________. That's because when we eat, for example, chewing _____, the pizza ________ volatiles that ______ from our mouths and throat up through the _____ passage. There, olfactory neurons get all the complex smells from the pizza and send that ___________ to the brain. The smell and taste work together to help us enjoy food. When our nose isn't working properly and food seems flavorless, it's because we're only tasting those basic ______ without any of the complex odors detected through smell.

Solution

  1. nasal
  2. information
  3. releases
  4. tastes
  5. experience
  6. taste
  7. travel
  8. pretty
  9. pizza

Original Text

Now, taste is completely different. It comes from taste receptors on our tongues and in our mouths. Taste is limited to the basics: salty, sweet, bitter, sour and, somewhat controversially, umami or savory. You can taste without smell, but anyone with a stuffy nose can attest that's a pretty bland experience. That's because when we eat, for example, chewing pizza, the pizza releases volatiles that travel from our mouths and throat up through the nasal passage. There, olfactory neurons get all the complex smells from the pizza and send that information to the brain. The smell and taste work together to help us enjoy food. When our nose isn't working properly and food seems flavorless, it's because we're only tasting those basic tastes without any of the complex odors detected through smell.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
odor receptors 3

Important Words

  1. attest
  2. basic
  3. bitter
  4. bland
  5. brain
  6. chewing
  7. completely
  8. complex
  9. controversially
  10. detected
  11. eat
  12. enjoy
  13. experience
  14. flavorless
  15. food
  16. information
  17. limited
  18. mouths
  19. nasal
  20. neurons
  21. nose
  22. odors
  23. olfactory
  24. passage
  25. pizza
  26. pretty
  27. properly
  28. receptors
  29. releases
  30. salty
  31. savory
  32. send
  33. smell
  34. smells
  35. sour
  36. stuffy
  37. sweet
  38. taste
  39. tastes
  40. tasting
  41. throat
  42. tongues
  43. travel
  44. umami
  45. volatiles
  46. work
  47. working