Question: how is food flavoured

Samuel Bloomfield answered on 30 Jun 2025:

On our tongue we have thousands of taste buds that detect different chemicals on our food. For example if there is a lot of sugar present then the food will taste sweet. There are five types of taste: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and savoury (umami). Food taste is usually a combination of these types. When we flavour food we are altering the chemicals present such that more or different taste buds detect the food.