Could the human faculty of 'taste' be used to decide what we eat?

[j.vaidya@ucl.ac.uk]

The complex relation between salt / caloric intake on human health 

reminds me of the holistic principles of Ayurvedic medicine.



Unlike modern medical nutritional concepts of Calorie, carbohydrate, 

protein, fat, etc, Ayurveda (whose very basis rested in maintaining good 

health), divided food items according to their taste. It gave quite 

precise guidelines of how much food of each of the following tastes a 

balanced diet should contain: sour, sweet, salty, savoury, spicy (with 

individual spices), bitter and many more. There were specific foods 

(usually classified by their taste) that were to be eaten or avoided in 

specific illnesses! We are now in a position to test and probably use 

their hypotheses.

Taste, a complex sensation, probably emerges from a myriad of individual 

chemicals, including the relative proportion of salts, sugars, fats, 

proteins, (?) (natural) caloric content, etc, etc, etc, etc. We have 

only begun to identify a few (probaly the most important) of these 

chemicals  and determine their role in our health. Evidence is emerging 

that such relations are indeed complex and may need finally,  the human 

neural network to give us the answer of what is good and what is bad 

(taste), at least until we can develop suitable silicon equivalents. 



I feel it is worthwhile to scientifically evaluate how food of a 

particular taste influences health and how particular taste preference 

(multiplied by the amount of food of that taste) changes risks of 

specific diseases and finally whether taste based intervention works.



Sincerely,



Dr Jayant S Vaidya MS DNB

Surgical Research Registrar