Calcium Might Have Taste Humans Can Detect

HealthDay, August, 2008 by Robert Preidt

It may be time to add calcium to the types of tastes -- sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory -- that can be detected by humans, according to U.S. researchers.

They found that a taste for calcium exists in mice. Since mice and humans share many of the same genes, the finding suggests that people may also be able to taste calcium. If that's true, it could have a number of implications.

"People don't consume as much calcium as nutritionists would like, and one reason for this is that foods high in calcium don't taste good to many people. Tweaking its taste could encourage a calcium-deficient population to consume more of this key nutrient," Michael G. Tordoff, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, said in an American Chemical Society news release.

"By...