Now I have allot of vegetarian friends who often comment on how great a fresh kebab or quarter pounder on the grill smells. They often ask; does it taste as good as it smells? Those of you who enjoy a nice HOT kebab or cheesy quarter pounder would agree it does, right? well this seemingly simple non-discovery may have lead to the greatest breakthrough in the dieting industry. It really is a non-discovery even Joey from friends know this:
well anyway, if something smells salty as humans we then perceive it to also taste salty...........cant think of any examples.....leave comments guys. This process is called Ortho-Nasal Olfaction and Retro-Nasal Olfaction. Scentsational technologies founded in 1997 are the industry leaders in developing, patenting and licensing Olfaction Packaging technology for food, beverages and consumer products. They have conducted masses of research into this field, hold a large stock of IP and began commercialization in 2003. They have come to realise the power of smell and are currently providing packaging solutions for many companies worldwide.
So how does this all work? well instead of adding masses of sugar, salt or fat (in the form of butter) one could simply substitute for the smell of sugar, salt or butter. The net result after all the chewing and olfactory detection and brain message relaying stuff is you believe you are eating salty, sweet or buttery food. Great! The CompelAroma technology encapsulates flavour molecules in the plastic packaging using Encapsulated Aroma Release™ technology this helps to keep the food fresh and stable giving us a longer shelf life. Currently only FDA approved flavours are being rolled out however plans to expand are high on the to do list I'm sure.
Now I can see the clear benefits for companies like Coca-cola, who are rumoured to have 8 tablespoons of sugar in a single can of Coke, I just don't see how they are going to fit the equivalent or any significant amount of sugar into the packaging! p.s Scentsational technologies
I think you couldn't think of an example of salty smell because salt may not be the best odorant for this -- we do smell salt air neat the beach, but as you correctly point out, that may just airborne salty water droplets reaching the tongue through the retronasal space. I don't think we actually smell salt (which is one reason why I'm leery about the vibration theory -- too many odorants are exactly the size range that the chemistry theory would predict, but vibration would seem to set fewer constraints).
ReplyDeleteWhat might work gangbusters, though, is a *fatty* smell. So much of our perceived taste has to do with fat molecules -- I think it's stearic acid that gives beef much of its flavor, caproic acid contributes to the flavor of goat, etc. -- that you could really do a bang-up job of giving, say, low-fat beef soup a real jolt with microparticles bearing beef-associated fatty acids.
Very interesting.