The taste receptors on your tongue can detect five distinct taste qualities, including sweet bitter, savory, sour, and umami; the combination of these qualities in any bite of food determines the flavour. In addition, the texture of what you eat – the crunchiness of a carrot and smoothness of yogurt, or the texture of avocado – stimulates another set of receptors, which specialize in recognizing mechanical qualities of food.
The combination of all of these sensations encoded in your mouth creates the experience that you know as taste.
Food companies are masters in designing foods that maximize this experience.
Some of these receptors are activated by specific molecules found in herbs and spices like garlic, hot chilli pepper, mustard and wasabi, while others respond to menthol, peppermint, cooling agents, and even cannabis.
Most of us use spices and herbs to stimulate taste receptors on our tongues, thereby enhancing the flavour of a meal.
After completing my Kitchen Medicine course, I found that all herbs are natural remedies in one way or another – without harming any of our hormones unlike prescribed medication can.
You see in many parts of the world, spices are an integral part of the culture. Just think of the Indians, Mexicans, and Persian foods without spice!
The consumption of spicy foods in many parts of the developing world protect people from gastrointestinal infections, and herbs such as peppermint have been found to prevent indigestion.
Bitter foods are more important than you realise, yet in our society today we overpower this taste by adding so much sugar and sweeteners (think of the sugar you put in your coffee)
Bitter plants warn you to eat just a little of them as their job is to switch on ghrelin (hunger hormone),which travels to the brain to stimulate appetite. Think of the chinese herbals that are very bitter, these are to be had just before a meal – they are to help activate one or more of the gut’s twenty five bitter receptors, thereby sending healing messages to your brain and body.
Look how much gut-brain connection research and studies are coming out now. There is so much evidence on how all this relates, yet we live in a society that squashes all original tastes by artificial additives and preservatives.
In countries that eat bitter greens and herbs – they tend to have a longer and healthier life than others. Just think : More bitter – more better.
What is GHRELIN?…..
When your stomach is empty, specialized cells in the stomach wall produce a hormone called ghrelin, which travels to your blood stream or signals via your vagus nerve to your brain, where it triggers a strong urge to eat. On the other hand, when you’re satiated and your small intestine is busy digesting your food, cells release “satiety” hormones to tell your brain that you’re full and it’s time to call a halt to further eating.
Think of ghrelin like an sand hourglass, when you eat you tip the sand glass over, once it runs out then the alarm/ghrelin signal goes off, as it thinks you should be hungry, so you eat and turn the sand glass back over to repeat the process (which is really just habit). However if you do not eat when the sand runs out, you may feel hungry for a little while, but you soon get over it, and the ghrelin signal will not come back because once the sand runs out and not turned back over it can’t set off the signal again.
We eat based around habit (after dinner on the couch), the clock (have to eat because it’s 12pm “lunchtime”), situations (designated “lunch break” at work, or coffee catch up). We have forgotten to listen to our bodies and eat when we are hungry. Many times it is not our hunger signal, but more so a thirst signal, or as mentioned before habitual.
How many times have you had more water or herbal teas, that has suppressed that “hunger” feeling???
Understanding your hormones and what signals they give you, makes your dietary and overall health lifestyle more acceptable, than thinking of a regimented “diet/eating plan” that is generic to everyone.
Tailoring it to you and your lifestyle makes more sense and including as many herbs and spices is the key – toughen up with taste, experience more bitter flavours, more spicy flavours and see how cooling agents can help with digestion (think that’s why the “after dinner mint” evolved, but again they had to add more sugar to the concept!).
I hope you found this article interesting and that you incorporate the herbs and spices into your diet.
Please share this with a friend or family member to help them with their health journey.
To your health
Kerrie
Professional health, fitness and wellbeing coach.
