Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Taste

My favorite kind of tests are taste tests. If you ever get bored and hungry, go to your local  food court and request a sample from each restaurant within, then finish it off by going to the chocolates kiosk and sampling some dessert. My wife had a gift certificate to a local chocolate shack and I learned a cool trick by accident. I pointed to a chocolate and told the man behind the counter, "I'd like to try that one." I thought he would just put it in the bag and add it to the order, but he just handed it to me instead! I asked to try 4 more chocolates before I started feeling guilty, or maybe I was just crashing from my sugar high. Or perhaps I was just drunk on chocolate like this adorable toddler...wait they put whiskey in their chocolate!? They can't be serving that to little kids! This hilarious baby is being exploited by this ad to imply that they are serving chocolates filled with devil spit to children! Please do not serve whiskey to children or you will go straight to hell and be forced to give sponge baths to the gods of swamp rock.


Our guest, Kathleen Kaller, talked about how marketing affects the way we prefer our food. People use the executive centers of their brains when selecting a beverage. Does this mean that advertising changes the way we taste our products or simply how we choose them? I would hope that I am smart enough to not be manipulated into liking horrible fast food. Maybe I allow myself to be tricked when I am desperate. I often cave in to my laziness at midnight when my options are limited. There is no way I'm slicing my own cheese and tomato at that hour, so I talk myself into eating fast food. As I pull up to the drive through window I psych myself up with a familiar pep talk, "I'm going to eat great, and even look how late it is!" And then I suffer from another sugar crashing guilt trip after glugging my 64 oz soda. why did I get the extra large dew at midnight? Maybe if water had worked on it's marketing campain I wouldn't still be awake at 4:30 in the morning with a name brand bottle acetaminophen in my hand.

I want to share this clip that we didn't get to on the show. It talks about how the tongue sends signals to the brain depending on what respecters are triggered. The receptors include sweet, sour, salt, bitter, and edamame...just kidding. The last one is umami. Here is the clip.



I found it interesting when he said many odors linger 8 inches off the ground. This is hard to disprove, because who in there right mind is going to walk around on all fours all day sniffing the air? And why do dog's, with a heightened sense of smell, always stick their noses right up into other dog's whatchamacallits? Ooh, I think I just came up with a new idea for a commercial  for my favorite childhood candy bar!

Thanks everyone for checking out this weeks blog. Go check out professorblastoff.com for more PB stuff and check out my website AaronBurrellComedy.com

Listen to episode #43 Taste here!

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