http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30952637
As we learned from the reading “The Receptor and Cells for Mammalian Taste,” umami is one of the five basic flavors that our taste buds can pick up. According to this BBC article, research conducted in Japan has shown that a dry mouth can prevent us from tasting food properly, which can in turn lead to decreased appetite. Researchers wanted to find a way to increase salivation and therefore improve taste sensation. They found that drinking kelp tea (an umami taste) stimulated salivation and appetite better than a sour taste did.
Reading this, I was reminded of the lemon glycerin oral swabs that are sometimes given to hospital patients to suck on. When I first saw them, I thought the swabs might be sour-flavored to increase salivation. If so, it seems that, in light of recent research, they should be umami-flavored instead.
I’ve also noticed that the Tower dining hall has started to serve kelp this semester. I wonder if our results from the baby food experiment would be different if our taste testers first drank some kelp tea.