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“There is no love sincerer than the love of food.”

Those were the words written by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw in his 1903 work Man and Superman.

We all have our favourite flavours and ingredients, but have you ever wondered what else may impact how food tastes to us? 91�ȱ� Bitesize takes a look at three scientific studies which explore how mood can affect flavour.

Can love make things sweeter?

In 2013, the National University of Singapore led a study which found that romantic love seemed to make things taste sweeter.

They invited several hundred students, both male and female, to write about an experience relating either to romantic love, jealousy or a neutral topic.

Scientists then had the students taste either a sweet, which was equally sugary and sour, or a chocolate, which was equally sugary and bitter. When asked to pick a taste sensation to describe the flavour, those who had written about romantic love responded that what they ate tasted sweeter than those who wrote about jealousy or a neutral topic.

Contrary to this, the study found that writing about jealousy didn’t appear to have an effect on the rankings of bitterness.

To see if the sugar-filled chocolate and sweets were responsible for triggering the expectation of sweetness, researchers later swapped them out for distilled water. A similar test was then conducted and results showed that the students who wrote about love still ranked the taste as sweeter than those who wrote about other topics.

In other words, thinking about being love and happiness was able to alter an individual’s perception of the sweetness of food and water - even when the latter didn’t have any sugar in. But how is this possible?

One possible theory is that this occurs when the brain processes the taste information. Researchers believe this can be attributed to a region of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex. It is this region which anticipates reward and can be activated by factors such as romantic love and the taste of sugar. This would mean that the brain may equate love with sweetness, even when there is no sweetness present.

Made with care

Have you ever wondered why food made by a loved-one may taste better than something shop-bought? While it could be attributed to fond childhood memories, there is the potential that knowing something was made with care can alter how it is physically experienced.

That’s what psychologists from the University of Maryland investigated when they conducted a series of experiments in a 2012 study.

For one of these experiment, 87 participants were informed that they were going to receive a snack. Each sweet was accompanied by one of two different notes, one which read “I picked this just for you. Hope it makes you happy!’’ or another which read, ‘‘Whatever. I don’t care. I just picked randomly.”

Participants then ate the sweet and were invited to respond to a series of questions, ranging from the taste of the sweet, to what they thought of the sweet-givers intentions.

The results showed that participants believed the snacks tasted sweeter when accompanied with the kind-hearted note. This supported the hypothesis that the experience of taste can in fact be affected by how we perceive the person making or giving the food.

That winning taste

But the taste sensations don’t stop there. In 2015, food scientists from Cornell University, US, investigated how a person’s emotional state, in relation to the world of sport, may impact their perception of taste.

They studied the fans of a men’s hockey team for a season, after four wins, three losses and one tie.

At the end of each home game, fans were asked to taste-test two frozen desserts - a sweet, salty and umami-tasting salted caramel ice cream and a sweet, sour and bitter lemon-lime sorbet. Fans were then asked to rate their enjoyment of the treats and their reactions to the game.

From the data collected from approximately 550 fans, the study found that positive emotions after a win made both desserts taste sweeter, while reducing sour and salty flavours. On the other hand, a loss decreased sweetness and enhanced sourness. Victory really does taste sweet!

This article was published in September 2024