Re: How can taste buds tell the difference between things

As you may already know, there are four main categories of taste sensation that combine to form an overall "taste" feeling. The categories of taste sensation are bitter, sweet, salt, and sour. For each type of taste sensation, there is a different kind of taste receptor. Taste receptors are the part of the taste bud that actually tastes items in your mouth. As you probably already know, all things are made of combinations of molecules. Each molecule has different properties, and each type of taste receptor is sensitive to specific properties of molecules. For example, the sour taste receptor detects how much acid is in the part of your mouth near it. Sour foods like lemons are quite acidic compared to foods that aren't sour. Sour foods will turn on the sour taste receptor, and the sour taste receptor will send a signal to other parts of the brain that you have tasted something sour. Other taste receptors detect different properties of molecules.

Another part of tasting something is smelling it, which is why you can't taste as much when you have a bad cold, but you can still tell whether something is salty. Similar to taste receptors, smell receptors, which are also known as olfactory receptors, are very sensitive to the shapes of molecules. When you put food in your mouth, some of the food molecules travel from your mouth to your nose and are detected by the olfactory receptors. So when you eat something, all of the different kinds of molecules in the food turn on olfactory receptors and taste receptors, and it is the combination of the signals from these receptors that determine how the food tastes.