Eighty percent of what we perceive as the flavor of food is actually due to your sense of smell. Only 20% comes from your sense of taste. I bet you thought it was the other way around.
“No way,” you say? Yes way. People that can’t smell can’t taste either. It’s a disorder known as anosmia. Don’t you remember your mom telling you to hold your nose when you refused take your medicine or eat your brussels sprouts? She was smarter than you after all.
Smell and taste work together. Your first sense of smell comes when you get a whiff of cookies baking in the oven or smell the fresh cinnamon apple pie cooling on the counter, but it goes way beyond that. When you chew food, the aromas go into your nasal cavity and send a signal to your brain (where lots of confusing things happen). It then works in tandem with your sense of taste to give the food its distinct flavor. Together Captain Smell and Taste Man make up the most dynamic duo you’ve ever seen. Believe it, comic-book geeks. They give you the power to enjoy life’s best experience: eating! Nom nom nom.
Since we’re on the topic of superheroes, let’s not stop there. Your sense of smell could actually be considered a super-human strength. In fact, in a study done by John McGann, a neuroscientist at Rutgers University, our sense of smell rivals that of dogs. That’s right, kids, Lacy can smell just as well as Lassie. Our nose can identify thousands of odors: nutty, fishy, burnt, fatty, fruit, mint, sulfur, dills, sweet, floral, etc. Batman and Robin can’t do that … Well maybe they can. But Voldemort can’t.