by Sage Doak

Created on: September 20, 2007

Rabbits eat their own faeces. This is a great way for them to gain and utilise most nutrients, which are not absorbed the first time around. Many other animals also do this. However, I could never see humans eating their own faeces for nutrition, avoiding those who engage in coprophilia.

Taste is the ultimate decider in whether or not a food will be accepted on mass. Bland foods tend not to compete well in the general market (though may bode well in the niche markets). Body builders know that to replace broken down muscle proteins they should drink a protein shake within X minutes of a workout. Plain protein shakes are gross, but you can get protein shakes in a wide variety of flavours that are no worse for you health wise than plain shakes.

One must acknowledge that most of our taste is done through our nose, if you do not know of this fact, just think back to your last cold where everything tastes like cardboard. If a food smells bad but tastes good, it is less likely to be consumed that a food that smells great but tastes bland. In the second example, the reward of smell outweighs the bad smelling good tastes. Of course this is a gradient and the best foods are somewhere in the middle or preferable smell and taste good.

It is easy to assume that if a food tastes good, it must be unhealthy. In general you are right, cakes, sweets, chocolate and the like are generally bad for you. As food, science moves forward, we are finding more and more ways to make these foods less bad for you (ignoring the issues of processed foods for now). There are thousands of sugar-free sweeteners, or low density unsaturated oils that can be used in food prep. You do not even need to hit science to find good tasting healthy foods. Foods such as sushi, salads, filled-rolls and much more all taste good whilst being healthy. This is a fact that Subway has clicked onto, and now is a worldwide phenomenon.

Tasty food is no longer unhealthy food. So therefore, taste is the most important.

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