Think attempting to limit people’s salt intake will ruin the flavor of everything? The hard science says otherwise. Get ready to taste the rainbow, New York
Tuesday begins the next phase of New York City’s totalitarian effort to turn one of the world’s great metropolises into a “mommy state” where no one is allowed to have any fun.
I support it!
Bitter compounds are detected via taste buds when they bind to G protein-coupled receptors. Human beings have at least 25 or so of these receptors and each bitterant can bind at different strengths to multiple receptors, which means people can taste a wide array of ‘bitterness’ – by some estimates, as many as 300 different types of bitterness. Salt, on the other hand, doesn’t bind to anything. The sodium ions simply pass through membrane channels that detect its presence – either salt is present, or it’s not. Think of salt and bitterness as the fast and slow lanes at a toll booth. Bitterants have to go through the slow lane and every car gets carefully inspected and assigned a unique toll. Salt simply passes under an RFID scanner that counts the number of cars and charges each the same amount of toll.
Continue reading...