Lecture 9 - Plants that give Flavour Herbs & Spices Flashcards
Taste was shaped by:
1) The ecological niches of our evolutionary ancestors
2) The nutrients they sought
Early hominids sought nutrition in _______________
closed tropical forests
T or F: Once hominids entered the savannah, dietary diversity and taste expanded
T
Taste was used to identify nutritious foods:
1) Reduced wasted energy and metabolic harm from consuming low-nutrient or low-energy foods
2) Reduced risk of lethal ingestion of plant toxins
T or F: Taste is still very useful for humans living with very low food security
T
T or F: Taste can cause over nutrition related diseases for humans who have easy access to tasty, energy dense foods
T
Pheromones released by others are sensed by the _____________ organ, picked up by microvilli, and sent to the accessory olfactory bulb
Vomeronasal
The _______________ organ, a specialized chemosensory pit in the palate or nasal septum of many vertebrate species responds to conspecific social communication compounds
Vomeronasal
The vomeronasal organ can detect _________ odour particles
moisture-borne
The human vomeronasal organ is located in the anteroinferior portion of the nasal septum and is part of the __________________system
accessory olfactory
T or F: the vomeronasal organ has been shown to play a role in the formation of social and sexual behaviour in animals
T
Babies seem to respond to phreomone-like substances from any mother’s ______________, which cause them to stick out their tongue and suckle
aerola gland secretions
Human pheromones:
_______________ (AND) is found in male sweat and semen, and ___________ (EST), is in women’s urine
- androstadienone
- estratetraenol
Human pheromones does affect the brain and emotions: Passively inhaling and enhanced _________ and _________ responses to emotional images
prefrontal and orbitofrontal
T or F: Taste sensory inputs influences our thinking, deciding and behavior toward sampled foods, both consciously and unconsciously, to guide ingestion - it determines what foods enter our body
T
Taste determines how these nutrients are handled ____________________
once they enter the body
What are the 5 tastes:
- Sweet
- Sour
- Salty
- Bitter
- Umami
Name some attributes of a taste perception:
- quality
- spatial localization
- hedonics
- temporal dynamics
- intensity
The number of compounds that elicits ________ are by far the largest and most structurally diverse
bitter taste
Humans posses about ______ functional bitter taste receptors genes (T2Rs)
25
T or F: Taste receptor cells are continuously replaced in the bud every 9 to 15 days, to compensate for mechanical, thermal, or toxin-induced damage. Capable of total regeneration
T
Bitter taste is caused by:
- alkaloids
- phenols
- flavonoids
- isoflavones
- terpenes
- glucosinolates
Nutrients in plants are ______ associated with bitter, potentially toxic phytochemicals
always
T or F: Humans can tolerate low levels of bitterness if they co-occur with nutrients in plants, or if they are paired with a positive metabolic pharmacological outcome: chocolate, coffee, wine
T
_______ also indicates medicinal qualities
bitterness
________ alters taste responses. Chief among these changes are increased sensitivity to bitter stimuli and feelings of ______ in response to bitter foods
Pregnancy
nausea
Nausea is a protective response at a time when major fetal organs are first forming and are highly sensitive to _______________
low levels of toxins
- Taste buds act as _______________
- Secretes glucagon-like peptide -1 (GLP-1), glucagon and other endocrine peptides
- Sends signal to ___________ to anticipate certain nutrients
- These anticipatory processes are essential to _____________
- endocrine glands
- digestive organs
- optimal metabolism
___________ all raise insulin levels. Even though stevia and aspartame don’t raise blood glucose levels
Sucrose, stevia and aspartame
____________ cause anticipatory responses to keep toxins to upper digestive tract
Strong bitter compounds
What happens when you ingest strong bitter compounds:
1) Causes nausea, sickness and malaise
- this serves as a psychological response to punish our behaviour and to protect us
2) Stomach contractions become chaotic to contain toxins to stomach and to prepare to vomit
3) Detoxification enzymes may be upregulated
T or F: Our ancestors were likely omnivore whose diet was rooted in tropical fruits, with leaves and insects
T
Humans, monkeys, and apes cannot synthesize ________ loss of functional gluconolactone oxidase gene
vitamin C
Umami taste is not obvious in fresh meats. Only in _______________ meats
aged or cooked
T or F: Chimps don’t seem to taste umami. Only early hominids and modern humans can taste it
T
Fermented foods are also high in _____________. Markers of improved nutrition and probiotic bacteria
glutamate
All mammals produce ____________________ but only great apes and some rodents have ____________________
- pancreatic a-amylase
- salivary a-amylase
Humans are unique in that we have large-scale copy number polymorphism of the salivary amylase gene ______
AMY1
_______ may indicate the presence of vitamin C (humans lack functional gluconolactone oxidase gene)
Acids
Mixture of acids with sugars enables the identification of fruit ________
ripeness
T or F: Acids and sour taste are also markers of fermentation, which humans around the globe clearly seek and ingest
T
_________ ingest salt with every meal, but _________ can easily become salt depleted
- carnivores
- herbivores
T or F: obesity is caused, in part, by the creation of foods that are hyper-appealing, high in salt, glutamate, sugar and fat
T
Flavour encompasses a substance’s ___________________________
taste, smell and physical traits we perceive
What is the most popular flavor worldwide:
vanilla
Terpenes are naturally occurring compounds, derived from the 5-carbon alkene isoprene. They contain multiples of ____________
5 carbon atoms
