Hunger Makes Food Taste Sweeter

Feb. 24, 2004 -- There may actually be a good reason why the forbidden fruit is the sweetest. A new study shows hunger can make sweet foods taste even sweeter.

Researchers found skipping a meal made people more sensitive to sweet and salty tastes.

The findings suggest that hunger may make your taste buds more sensitive and change the way you perceive certain foods -- making sweet foods tastes even sweeter and salty ones saltier.

Hunger Alters Taste Buds

In the study, researchers asked 16 male college students to skip breakfast after they had eaten the same dinner at 6:30 p.m. the previous evening. The students were then asked to taste different concentrations of solutions that had sugar, salt, or quinine (bitter).

The same taste test was repeated an hour after the students had eaten lunch.

The study showed that when the students were hungry, their taste buds were more sensitive and the students were able to detect lower concentrations of sugar and salt in the drinks. But hunger didn't seem to affect their perception of the bitter solution, even though the bitter drink was much more mildly flavored than the sweet and salty ones.

Researchers say the fact that bitter tastes were easily detected and unaffected by hunger may be due to biological factors.

"While sweet and salty tastes are indicators of eatable substances and trigger consumption, bitter taste indicates substances which are not suitable for consumption and should be rejected," writes researcher Y. Zverev of the University of Malawi in Africa.

The study appears in the current issue of BMC Neuroscience.