By Michelle Swartz

Ice cream, candy, pizza … all your favorite foods taste so good.

But have you ever thought about how you actually taste the food?

You can thank your tongue and its taste buds and your nose for tasting the flavors of your favorite food and beverages. That’s because they work together to create different sensations so you know what you are eating.

Basic tastes are sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Keep reading on so you can learn more about how you taste food!

A nose for taste

While taste buds play a major role in telling the difference between pizza and fish, you also can thank your nose.

Receptors in your nose contain cells that help you smell. Like taste buds, these special cells send messages to the brain.

While you’re chewing, the food releases chemicals that travel up into your nose.

The chemicals trigger the receptors inside the nose to work with your taste buds to create the true flavor of what you’re eating by telling the brain all about it.

This is why you can’t taste anything when you have a cold or flu. When your nose is plugged up, it can’t smell or help you taste any food.

Your tongue and nose work as a team so you can enjoy foods like hot dogs, pizza or chocolate!

Budding senses

Have you ever wondered what all those tiny bumps are doing on your tongue?

They are called papillae and they contain taste buds.

These buds have sensitive, microscopic hairs that send messages to the brain about how something tastes.

Tastes are broken down into four sensations: salty, sweet, sour and bitter.

Salty and sweet senses, like sugar, are mostly tasted at the tip of the tongue.

Bitter tastes, like coffee, are sensed at the back of the tongue.

Sour tastes, like lemon juice, are sensed at the sides of the tongue, at the middle and toward the front.

The average person has about 10,000 taste buds. They’re replaced about every two weeks.

But as you get older, some of those taste cells don’t get replaced. Your grandma or grandpa, for example, may only have about 5,000 working taste buds.

Medicine that actually tastes good

Sometimes, taking medicine when you’re sick only makes you feel worse because of its awful taste. But that’s changing.

Medicine is becoming much more enjoyable since different flavors are now available.

Medication flavoring is becoming the standard at most pharmacies, including local stores.

Medications can come in flavors such as bubble gum, grape, cherry and even strawberry cheesecake! The idea is to make the experience of taking medicine a more pleasant one.

Another reason not to smoke

We all know that it’s unhealthy to smoke cigarettes. But if you haven’t heard enough reasons, here’s another: Smoking hurts taste buds and your nose.

That’s why smokers don’t have a good sense of taste. They can’t enjoy the taste of great foods as much as non-smokers so just avoid smoking entirely.

Your taste buds will thank you.