Barney, Male Presenter:
What happens when we eat? Well if we divide today's lesson into three stages, the first stage we're going to look at is taste. And I can't wait for this, cause this is going to go into my face.
Fran, Female Presenter:
We'll see. We'll see because as you guys know, taste is one of our senses.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Yes.
Fran, Female Presenter:
And we use taste when we eat food. obviously!
Barney, Male Presenter:
We do. Yes.
Fran, Female Presenter:
But it's not just about taste. Our other senses, like sound, touch, smell and sight, come into play as well. And some foods look nicer than others to eat, don't they audience?
Barney, Male Presenter:
That's true.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Yeah?
AudienceYes.
Barney, Male Presenter:
They're all staring at the chocolate cake right now, going yeah.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Well, let's see which one they prefer. If you would prefer this nice colourful salad, just by looking at it, make some noise now.
Audience:
Yes. [LAUGHS]
Fran, Female Presenter:
Not so much.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Okay, well let's try this one, shall we? Make some noise if you would like this dark, velvety, succulent, sweet, sugary, runny, chocolate mess of a cake.
Audience:
[SHOUTS] Yeah.
Barney, Male Presenter:
How surprising a finding that was.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Yeah, I think the cake might have won slightly there. But I wonder how many of you went for it, just because it looks nicer than the salad. But we could also go for foods that make noise, like crisps. Just the sound of someone annoyingly munching crisps, can make them actually appeal to some of us.
Barney, Male Presenter:
It's very true. Also, how food tastes can influence what we choose to eat in the first place. You might like savoury foods more than you like sweet things.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Hey, did you bring any meat paste cocker? I want some paste, I want to rub into my face.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Of course not, it's disgusting. What do you want that for?
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
You can't get the staff, cocker.
Barney, Male Presenter:
You really can't.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Okay, so we haven't got you any meat paste, but what we do have is this. Now everybody take a look at this very special box, which your school should have received from Terrific Scientific, to help you conduct your own investigation. This box is going to help you unleash your inner scientist. And inside of this box, amongst other things, is some blue food dye. And this will help you discover what kind of taster you are and see if you are either a non-taster, a taster or a super taster.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Okay, well I think I'm a super taster, cause I can taste everything. And it tastes super.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Okay.
Barney, Male Presenter:
But how do I find out for sure?
Fran, Female Presenter:
Well, Barney, you need to stick your tongue out.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Well I was told that was very rude when I was little. You can't just stick your tongue out like that on telly.
Fran, Female Presenter:
And when have you done anything that you're told?
Barney, Male Presenter:
Never.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Exactly! So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put some blue food dye on it and what I'm looking for, is for the number of fungi-form papillae.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Oh yes the fungi-formius pappilonius.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Yes the fungi-form papillae. Which are like the pink lumps and bumps. And we're looking to see how many of those you have…
Barney, Male Presenter:
On my tongue?
Fran, Female Presenter:
…in a certain area of your tongue.
Barney, Male Presenter:
I've got crisps on my tongue at the minute.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Well, we'll see what happens, cause I'm going to look at it through this ring and see how many you have within that ring.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Okay. Good.
Fran, Female Presenter:
And if you have nought to five papillae, then you're a non-taster.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Yes.
Fran, Female Presenter:
If you have six to 10 papillae, that means you're a taster.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Papillae is a funny word isn't it?
Fran, Female Presenter:
Papillae, yes. And that means you're one in two of us are that. That's most common.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Okay.
Fran, Female Presenter:
But if you have 11 or more papillae, then you're a super taster.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Okay. Well while Fran tests me, here's a short explanation as to how the blue food dye test works.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Alright, stick your tongue out.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Okay.
Audience:
Papillae.
Narrator:
All our taste buds sit in little bumps on our tongue called fungi-form papillae. To count how many you have, you apply some blue food dye to the front third of your tongue using a cotton bud like this. Your tongue will go blue, but the dye will slide off the fungi-form papillae, making then look like large pink bumps. Using a piece of hole-punched card, you can now count how many papillae you have within the small circle and compare it to our taste chart.
Fran, Female Presenter:
You alright there, Barney yeah?
Barney, Male Presenter:
Yeah.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Yeah, yeah. Alright. Now the thing is, it's time to give the results of Barney's tongue, let's have a look. Okay, well Barney you are actually a taster.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Oh amazing!
Fran, Female Presenter:
So statistically, you're the same as half of the population and you have an average amount of fungi-form papillae on your tongue.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Which means that I'm a taster.
Fran, Female Presenter:
It does mean you're a taster.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Well I'm going to take my tasty taster over here with my blue tongue. Cause it's such a simple test, you can learn so much from it as well. Lots of you been doing this in your classroom, since you got the box. And you've already sent us your results. So have a look at these great pictures that have been sent in. Braunstone Community Primary school in Leicester, that's a good way to hold your chin up if you're being tested. Beautiful! Dunrossness Primary School, Shetland, they're doing their blue tongue test. He's very interested in counting the fungilonius papilonius. New Scotland Hill Primary School in Berkshire, this is actually a very clever photograph, because they've arranged themselves in order of super taster at the left to taster in the middle and non taster on the right. That's a really clever idea, that is. If we take a look here at the Duloe C of E School in Cornwall, they're doing the same thing and as you can see, they wear lab coats instead of uniforms. So thank you.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Well I've never seen quite so many papillae.
Barney, Male Presenter:
I've never seen so many pallilius in my life.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Not that.
Barney, Male Presenter:
I keep saying it wrong, by the way. Don't listen to me, I'm just here to ask questions today. Now we've got a little bit of a graph for you, because we can now reveal for the very first time, how many of you are super tasters, on our charts. Now thousands of you have already been doing this test and sending in your results. So let's take a look at them here. Wow! 39% are super tasters. That's quite a high number that, isn't it?
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Yes.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Now you'll notice here, the teachers have already spotted this, I'm sure. But this is not just a chart, it's a pie chart. And it's a pie chart because we're talking about food, we're eating and taste-- get it? It's a pie…
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Barney?
Barney, Male Presenter:
What?
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
I do the funnies, cocker.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Sorry.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Now did you know that dogs have got taste buds too, you know?
Barney, Male Presenter:
Have they?
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Yeah, most animals do actually. Dogs have got about 1,700 of them.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Yeah.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Would you like to look at my papillae?
Barney, Male Presenter:
Sure. Okay.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Touch them. Touch them.
Barney, Male Presenter:
I don't really want to. I don't want to touch them really.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Touch them.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Okay,okay. It's quite smooth as a surface isn't it?
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Oh, Barney.
Barney, Male Presenter:
What have you been eating?
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Most things.
Barney, Male Presenter:
It's just one big papillonius that isn't it?
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
I've got one big papillae.
Barney, Male Presenter:
I can trade your knowledge for some other knowledge.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Can you?
Barney, Male Presenter:
I can talk to you about birds. Did you know that birds have fewer taste buds than humans and they actually have a poor sense of taste. Flies, and butterflies, can taste with their feet. Now think about what flies land on.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Ugh! Is that why they don't wear shoes?
Barney, Male Presenter:
It must be. But you are right about dogs. They do have about 1,700 taste buds, but that is nothing…
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
I told you that.
Barney, Male Presenter:
…you did, but I've got to read it again.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Alright.
Barney, Male Presenter:
But that's nothing compared to the 10,000 taste buds that we human have.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
Oh you're just showing off now.
Barney, Male Presenter:
10,000 we have.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
You keep your extra taste buds. Hey, do you know something Barney?
Barney, Male Presenter:
What's that?
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
I'm supposed to be man's best friend.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Yeah.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
But right now, I'm not feeling the chemistry between us. Yet more science jokes, cocker. I use that joke in the last live lesson.
Barney, Male Presenter:
It's funny yeah.
Voice of Hacker, Puppet dog:
And they've invited me back. And I didn't even put my feet up.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Yeah, yeah. Oh, alright thanks Hacker. Now we've just talked a bit about how your taste buds can define what kind of taster you are. But, we're about to learn if it's possible to change your taste to enjoy bitter foods more than you did before. Now, back in November, Terrific Scientific teamed up with Coventry University and investigated the taste buds of children in four schools, from Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and this lot from England. Give us a cheer?
Audience:
[SHOUTS]
Fran, Female Presenter:
Feast your eyes on this.
Plymouth Grove Shcool Teacher:
We're really lucky because we're going to be taking part in a really exciting science experiment for Terrific Scientific. It's going to be all about taste.
Female pupil:
I like carrots.
Male pupil:
Chicken nuggets.
Female pupil 2:
Sweetcorn.
Male pupil 2:
Pizza.
Male pupil 3:
I don't like peas.
Female pupil 3:
Sprouts.
Female pupil 4:
Tomatoes.
Female pupil 5:
I hate broccoli.
Male pupil 4:
Broccoli, cabbages and most vegetables.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
What we're hoping to do in this experiment is to see can we learn to like a vegetable that we would normally reject?
Plymouth Grove Shcool Teacher:
So, we've got two things to try today. And one of the things that you're going to try is kale.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
The reason we've chosen kale, is it tastes quite bitter and lots of people don't like it.
Plymouth Grove Shcool Teacher:
And one of the things you're going to try today is raisins. [SHOUTS]
Professor Jackie Blissett:
A raisin is really acting as the control in this experiment. We need to see whether just taking part in a study might make a difference to what you prefer.
Male pupil 3:
I've never eaten kale, this is the first time.
Male pupil:
It taste really, tasted like a sock a little bit.
Female pupil 2:
It was quite crunchy and I didn't expect that.
Male pupil 5:
I didn't really like the kale but I liked the raisins.
St. Fagan's Primary Male Teacher:
After day one, we split into two groups. One group got the raisin and the other group got the kale and since then we've been tasting that every day.
Male pupil 3:
Today I liked it because it wasn't too bad.
Female pupil 4:
On the first day, I like it. And now every time I eat it, it's getting better.
Female pupil 6:
It's weird texture. It tastes like paper.
Hazel Wood Primary male teacher:
Today is the final day you get the chance to taste the kale. [SHOUTS]
Male pupil 7:
On the first day, I didn't really like it that much. But now I really like it.
Male pupil 8:
At the start, I thought it was okay and then, as it's gone on, it got a wee bit worse and then it got a bit okay.
Male pupil 4:
I got used to it and I started to quite liking it more.
Male pupil 9:
After three weeks I still didn't like the kale.
Hazel Wood Primary male teacher:
Today we're going to try and find out if there are any super tasters in the class.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
We're also interested in whether or not the number of taste buds that you have on your tongue, might make a difference to how easy it is for you to learn to like these bitter tasting vegetables.
Female pupil 4:
I had 16 taste buds on my tongue. And that means I am a super taster.
Male pupil 10:
I had 18.
Female pupil 7:
I had 10 but I'm in between a super taster and a non taster.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
What I'd like pupils to take from away from this experiment, is a love of science and a bit of an understanding of what it might take to carry out a scientific experiment.
Female pupil 4:
It has been really fun to be part of such a fantastic experiment.
Audience:
[SHOUTS]
Barney, Male Presenter:
That was clever wasn't it? So, over three weeks, four school tasted kale and raisins. The investigation was recorded by the school teachers and sent away to Coventry University, where scientists look for any patterns in the results. And the results which were revealed this morning on ±«Óătv Breakfast news. So here to tell us more about those results and the investigation is the brains behind it, she was in the film, please give a huge round of applause for Professor Jackie Blissett.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Woo! [SHOUTS]
Barney, Male Presenter:
Jackie, hello. Welcome.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
Hi there, hi.
Barney, Male Presenter:
So let's talk about the aim of the investigation. What were you trying to find out?
Professor Jackie Blissett:
So what we were trying to do with this study was to see whether we could learn to like kale, which is quite a bitter tasting food and one that often people don't like very much. Just by trying a little bit of it every day, for three weeks. We were also interested in whether or not it might be more difficult to learn to like that bitter taste if you are a super taster.
Barney, Male Presenter:
And we had quite a high number of super tasters on our pie chart. Is that higher than you'd expect on there?
Professor Jackie Blissett:
It was, yeah. So we would expect around 25% of the population to be super tasters.
Fran, Female Presenter:
So about a quarter?
Professor Jackie Blissett*:
About a quarter. There are lots of reasons why we could have got a high number of super tasters. One of the things that could have happened, is that we could have had children with a low number of fungi-form papillae in our original sample, where we decided what the cut offs were.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Yeah.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
It could have been that children were counting other bumps on the tongue that weren't fungi-form papillae. Or it could be to do with where people are from or their age or their gender, which we know affects their taste sensitivity.
Barney, Male Presenter:
So would that fit with this message from Mr. Dellafield at St. Luke's Primary School in Worksop. Uh we had 44% super tasters.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Wow!
Barney, Male Presenter:
Many children made comments such as who is winning and I suspect the counting may have skewed to be slightly higher.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
Yeah, so that's what we call bias in an experiment, isn't it?
Barney, Male Presenter:
Right.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
That people wanted to be super tasters, so they may have been inclined to count a few more paps.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Who wants to be a super taster in here? Hands in the air. Every single person, course it does.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
Yeah. You don't get a cape.
Barney, Male Presenter:
No.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Yeah, see I don't know if I want to be super taster. I like to enjoy all the food.
Barney, Male Presenter:
I do. That's a good point.
Fran, Female Presenter:
So if you are a super taster, does it mean that you like certain foods more or less?
Professor Jackie Blissett:
Well actually, what it means, usually, is that you like quite a few foods less than other people. And those tend to be the really strong flavoured foods, particularly the bitter tasting foods, like Brussels sprouts…
Barney, Male Presenter:
yuk!
Professor Jackie Blissett:
…or kale like we had in this experiment. Coffee or even things like chilli and things that have a kind of burn in the mouth.
Fran, Female Presenter:
I get you. I get you.
Barney, Male Presenter:
My favourite foods.
Fran, Female Presenter:
Yeah. So, do you get right and wrong answers in experiments like this?
Professor Jackie Blissett:
There's no right or wrong answer in an experiment like this. We set up our experiments to test the ideas that we have. Sometimes those experiments support what we think we're going to find. And sometimes they don't. We always have to look at our data and think about the experiment to explain the results that we get.
Barney, Male Presenter:
It always has to be a fair test as well doesn't it? How do you make that fair?
Professor Jackie Blissett:
It does always have to be a fair test. So we did lots of things in this study to try and make it a fair test. One of the things we did was to have what we call a control group. So the children who ate raisins every day were doing that because we wanted to know whether just taking part in the study might make a difference to how you rated the kale at the end. The other important thing is the only thing that was different between our control group and our experimental group was whether or not they had kale every day. And also, we tossed a coin to decide whether or not children should be in the kale group or the raisin group…
Barney, Male Presenter:
Okay.
Professor Jackie Blissett:
…because it wouldn't have been a fair test if you could have chosen which group to go into.
Barney, Male Presenter:
So let's ask the question then about the experiment, you've got the results, can you actually train your taste buds to like a taste?
Professor Jackie Blissett:
Well the good news is, you can train yourself to like something more than you liked it before. You're not really training your taste buds, but what we found in this experiment, was that the children who had a little bit of kale every day, were significantly more likely to like it at the end of the study, than the children who had raisins every day. The thing is, that what's going on, it's not about changing your taste buds, it's your brain learning about the flavour of the food, from it's taste, it's smell and learning that it's safe to eat.
Barney, Male Presenter:
Amazing.