Notes: I did not really research anything beforehand, because I want to let my imagination run wild. Please take this post with a grain of salt, if there are some concepts that I get wrong, please don’t hesitate to contact me so I can fix it.
I was just going to have my lunch today, and while my sis was going to pass me my orange juice, she jokingly will pour my juice to my bowl of meatball soup. Then a thought occurred to me in this order in less than a second:
- The children in this family are taught not to drink multiple kinds of non-mineral-water drinks in a day. For example, if we drink orange juice during lunch, then we cannot drink anything else besides orange juice or water for the rest of the day.
- Well, if you are going to pour it down, it won’t matter since it’ll get mixed in my stomach anyway.
- Since all foods we eat will always get mixed and processed evenly in the stomach, why would I get triggered when the juice is mixed with the soup?
- Ok, it would become “Orange juice of meatball soup”. What would it taste like? Will a chemical reaction happen? What do I only know is it will probably taste weird but edible.
- Weird is relative, it might be weird for me, but probably not for anybody else. For my stomach, it’s not weird because it’s just food no matter how delicious it tasted on my tongue. It doesn’t care.
Of course she did not pour the juice to the soup. Thanks to her though, I got a new random topic to write about.
Let’s start with a bit of biology, though to be honest, I don’t like studying biology, with the exceptions of sex (who doesn’t?), and muscle groups. Probably a little bit of digestive system, though limited only to eating.
As we all already know stomach is an important organ in our body (duh). Basically it processes munched food by our teeth and mixed with our spit, stirred with tongue. At this point, the food will already taste rather bland, already mixed with saliva. The gastric acid in the stomach will further melt the food, then pass through the intestine to be absorbed by our body. Not all of them are absorbed though, because the remnants of the food will finally end up in the toilet as what we civilised people call: shit.
Since the gastric acid in our stomach pretty much melts any reasonable food we eat, it doesn’t need taste buds. Because I think it already served its purpose of getting food for our body: swallowed food by our mouth. Which is why food tastes better when we are hungry. It’s a sign that we have to eat, other than from the grumbling stomach of course.
I might be wrong, but I’m rather confident I’m not because it makes sense to me, just a personal opinion.
Ok, we all know the facts, we studied biology in school before, we know it all works well for every healthy humans and animals too. Now, let’s activate our imagination program.
Imagine. That. Our stomach can taste foods. Imagine that the saliva does not blandify the taste of food, so the food will taste the same in the stomach.
Think about it.
Think.
Are you done?
Think some more.
Ok, that’s enough.What did you think about? Did you think your life will be better or more miserable? Would you love this new feature in your stomach?
I think there’s both good and bad side from this, like everything else in this world. It has to be balanced, like all things should be.
The Bad
Because I love happy endings, and happy endings are usually from the good side, let’s start with the bad first.
You will hate every moments after eating, at least for 2 hours. FOR TWO HOURS! Think about it, sometimes after you eat your main course, you eat dessert. What would you eat? Cake? Ice cream? Fruits? Definitely something yummy. I am an Asian living in South East Asia, so I eat rice almost daily. Can you imagine, eating rice mixed with chocolate? Edible, yes. Poisonous? I don’t think so. Taste good? Maybe. Put it simply, just try eat rice mixed with chocolate, or eat whatever that you think will not mix well. Feel the taste. Enjoy the sensation. Savor it. Then imagine tasting it constantly for two hours, probably more. Will it taste good?
There will be some weird transitioning moments between the tastes. Imagine that 1 hour after lunch, you eat your ice cream. Of course, you cannot eat your ice cream wholly in a bite. You might eat 2% or even 5% of your ice cream first. Maybe at 2% or 5% ice cream, you can feel that your lunch still tastes good, though has a little weird sweet taste. After 50% ice cream, you will not feel so good about your lunch anymore. What about 100% then? Unimaginable.
You can simultaneously feel two different tastes at once. For this one, I can’t even imagine it. Normal food taste in the mouth, and your weird mixed-food taste in the stomach. Could it be the same with eating while having sex? Or, eating while working out? Maybe, eating near the garbage dump (eww…)?
You will also hate your toilet moments. I’m sure you get this one. While you are doing your ritual, you can still taste your food. I will leave that to your imagination.
For the most part, I think the main problem lies on the mixed taste sensation and long time to endure it, however the taste might be.
The Good
I tried to balance the good and the bad. I did. I really tried.
You can simultaneously feel two different tastes at once. Wait, wasn’t this one on the bad side? Yes I know. Depending on the circumstances, this also can be a good thing but only on one condition. Do. Not. Swallow. The. Food. You don’t want to feel the weird mixed taste.
You might eat less sugar. Personally, I think that the weird taste is caused of the sweetness. Sweet food and drinks only taste good for a while. I can only eat three sweet candies in a row before I daze because of the sweetness.
More food variants that complement each other. Because we want to feel good all the time. The chefs and moms and dads who cook will somehow experiment more tastes that will make people feel good for the rest of the day. There might be more combination on menu ideas for a day on Instagram. Think about the menus for body building or vegetarian, but this one’s for your sanity.
Conclusion
Of all things considered, I still prefer our current body. It’s already perfect. We don’t need to constantly taste good or weird. Some things are best limited, so we can value it more when we have a chance to feel it.
Maybe this is one of the reason why we don’t eat constantly, like every five minutes or every second, so we can appreciate the good taste of our food and enjoy it in every bite.
“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”
― Hippocrates
