As technology improves every year, the ability to taste the food made in cooking programs could soon be making its way to our television sets.
Cooking television programs are something of a marvel and there’s very little that’s wrong about them. From just about every corner of the world, celebrity chefs and food experts alike give us their takes on the world’s cuisine, whether it be a fantastic and wonderfully spicy curry in Asia, a delicious pasta dish served at a villa in Italy or the home cooked American special of mac ‘n’ cheese. We watch, mouths agape, tastebuds tingling at the amazing feasts and banquets that sit, steaming on our TV screens. But to recreate those dishes it takes patience, skill and effort and that’s part of the reason why TV cooking shows are so popular. But now, scientists say that there could be a way to bring the taste sense to our televisions.
This is not the first time that taste-o-vision has been explored in devices, using chemicals which are not easy to store and would have to be refilled once they’re used up, something that Dr Nimesha Ranasinghe, an engineer at the National University of Singapore, discusses, saying that “chemicals in an interactive system is unrealistic since a set of chemicals is difficult to store and manipulate”. But Ranasinghe’s method uses electrodes to stimulate the taste buds on the tongue, which are divided into sections of taste that include: salt, sweet, sour and bitter, allowing the technology to recreate any one of those sensations.
Ranasinghe explains that “By manipulating the magnitude of current, frequency, and temperature – both heating and cooling – thus far salty, sour, and bitter sensations have been successfully generated.” The technology could also help those with illnesses, such as diabetes, avoid sugar, as it could recreate sweet tastes, without them actually ingesting sugar. However, the method could still be a long way off as Ranasinghe states that “At the moment [his team] are expanding our technology to add the sense of smell into the experience”, with smell being an important part of how we taste food, but if research improves, this could be somewhat revolutionary.
We’ll keep you posted once we know more.
Source: The Telegraph
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