Humans inherently love to touch. It’s part of who we are … literally. Our skin is the largest organ in our body and contains the most nerve endings. And just to reinforce the fact, our finger tips have the highest concentration of nerve endings. Most of us need to touch something before we eat it, and if we can’t touch it then we thoroughly inspect – and identify – it through sight. Textures can affect whether or not we eat something and influences our expectations of what something tastes like.
Most of us have held and eaten a ton of cupcakes in our lives. We know what they are supposed to look like and feel like when we pick them up. If you walk into grandma’s kitchen and see three chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting on the counter you’re very likely going to pick one up. If it’s soft and fluffy with moist icing you’ll dive right in. However, if you grab the cupcake and it’s hard with dry icing you’ll likely give it the old smell test before curling your bottom lip and throwing it away. Your sense of touch already determined the taste of the food.
In the case of the cupcakes, even when the taste and smell of a stale cupcake is very similar to a fresh one, we know a mouth full of dry, expired cupcakes won’t be pleasant. The same could be said for soggy cereal. Once it loses its crunchiness it’s way less enjoyable.
Side note: if you hate soggy cereal then stop pouring your milk over all the contents in the bowl. Instead, pour milk into one spot and let the milk fill from the bottom – leaving the rest of the cereal high and dry. It will stay crunchier longer. Trust me.
We use our sense of touch to gauge whether or not something feels edible. We see it, we touch it, and then when we’re confident or enticed enough, we taste it. Touch is an important sense because it allows us to become more familiar with what we are about to eat. It confirms and educates.