# TASTING BASICS, EXPLORATION, DEVELOPMENT, and GAMES

Parent Page : Breathing, Smelling, and Tasting

Animals' Sense of Taste
I'm sure animals are intensely aware of the tastes and smells inside their own bodies, and they notice all the subtle changes.

When eating walnuts, they would expect and recognise a different feeling inside to when eating worms. But this change would be common sense for them, because they know what they have eaten.

Inner-body sensations are fairly constant, the changes are slow – they are not comparable to sudden unexpected external changes – they don't require or stimulate being now, but they are vital to develop a deeper sense of body and self-identity.

Animals must experience their inner bodies in ways i can't imagine. But their inner sensory impressions provide a constant, a feeling of permanence in their self-identity.

## Tasting Yourself

The taste of our own bodies from the inside is a 'constant' in our self-identity, and yet humans are out of touch with it, we hardly ever even think about it.

Every day, in the modern world we eat such a rich variety of enhanced foods, the taste of our own body is bland by comparison, it's as though there's nothing there to taste.

The taste of our own body has become boring – imagine this condition which we accept as normal: we are bored with the taste of our own bodies!

Historical Perspective
Animals usually only eat one sort of food at a time... i'm not asking people to simplify to that extent... but just let the thought hover for a while... start to take a few minutes pause after the first course and taste the effects of a meal inside your body.

After a balanced meal there is a sense of that meal all over your body. However if you eat a desert and then cheese after the meal it confuses everything. It gives us a feeling of being full, but there's no clear taste residue.

I'll give a recent example. I ate fish, potatoes, and a light sauce, then i ate yoghurt and prunes. I was surprised because it seems balanced, but afterwards there was no taste residue in my body.

Our inner-body sense is being alienated and confused by the luxurious variety of tastes in the modern world.

## The Science

Since the 1990s Western specialists mostly agree on five categories to define the different tastes (sweet, bitter, sour, salty and umami), but there are many differing opinions.

There's also disagreement about where we taste, some experts say only the tongue can taste, and even the roof of the mouth has no sense of taste because it has no taste receptors – so let's forget the science it's the felt-reality which is important and almost totally unresearched.

The felt-reality could only be intelligently researched by questioning and finding a consensus of opinion among small children.

Food Taste Throughout the Body
There is a sense of taste throughout the entire body. Food and drink overpower our own body taste, but they enable us to quickly realise that we do actually have a sense of taste throughout the entire body.

Initially there are different qualities of a meal or drink taste all over the mouth. After a few minutes, follow the flavour down your throat, and into your central body, taste it down in your stomach.

After a balanced meal i can still feel the taste of that meal for several hours all over my body. If science argues that this is a memory or an illusion – then i'd argue that animals would also have such memories and illusions.

It takes between 2 and 12 hours for the effects of a balanced meal to disappear.

If you are continually snacking and eating three meals a day you will not have any space or time to taste your own inner body self taste. Fasting for a day is a valuable experience.

## Tasting Ourselves

To start to get a feeling for our own self-taste, we need to start by exploring the contrasts between the different taste areas in the mouth.

Use the tip of your tongue, and taste at the back on the soft palate, then up on the roof of the mouth, then at the front behind the teeth. Then taste both sides and underneath the tongue. Then taste at the front between the lips and the lower and upper teeth. And then just feel the taste of your lips (if you lick your lips it disturbs the natural taste). Notice the similarities and the contrasts.

The very sensitive tip of your tongue will help to clarify the contrasts, but now, without your tongue, take a minute to sense those tastes directly. Notice as well, a very rich flavourful area right at the back of the mouth on both sides between the jaws.

Follow the sense of taste down your throat, down the digestive canal to the stomach. Then spread this subtle new awareness out, stretch it like a new muscle you're developing.

I feel a sense of taste all over my body... i try to taste it; when i started i used to imagine a big tongue licking me inside.

## Tasting and Relaxing

I noticed quite quickly that where the skin was tense, there was no sense of taste. Activating the sense of taste relaxes all over the mouth.

Tasting is a very effective way of increasing the sensitivity and therefore relaxing such areas.

This applies also to the body. Areas which are tense have no sense of taste.

We can relax our body by increasing the sensitivity to it by tasting, smelling, hearing, and "seeing" it.

The Subtle Depths of Inner Taste
The point is, there must be many different tastes in our bodies but we have never practised being aware of them.

I can only give a few subjective guidelines.

I notice three basic qualities of taste in the mouth; salty, sweet, and fruity tastes vaguely resembling prunes and/or rhubarb (back at the sides, inbetween the jaws). They are all very subtle and faint.

Then i notice the lips taste almost like strawberries. And a sort of nutty flavour in the head (appropriate?), and something like cooked meat in my rather badly smoked lungs. I claim no scientific objectivity. The only way to approach the truth about how animals actually feel would be to ask innocent children. In the body i notice particularly that bony areas feel salty, compared to fleshy areas being sweet. For example the thighs taste different to the hands, or the head. (I don't find any lemon, peppermint, or fish tastes inside my body.)

As so often on the subject of inner-body awareness, there are many questions which i would like children to clarify. We need them to teach us. What is the natural approach to body-taste awareness?

## Beginners Tasting Games

Food overpowers our inner body tastes, but we feel it easily all over our bodies. It is useful to eat strong tasting foods to actually experience and confirm that we can taste all over our bodies.

Start with something like a ripe lemon, an onion, soy sauce, a small glass of southern comfort or a similar sweet liqueur, and a small unsweetened bitter coffee.

Taste just a few drops of strong ripe lemon juice, swirl it around, gargle, feel how in different areas of the mouth it's different strengths. The sensation on the roof of the mouth may be faint, but the taste is clear on the lips, between lips and gums, all around the sides, under the tongue, naturally the tongue itself, and back all the way to the throat.

Then swallow just a little drop, feel it in the throat, and down along inside the spine. Then do you notice how after a minute, a faint sense of this taste spreads into the cheek bones, jaw, the front and sides of your neck – (maybe something like an optical illusion, but that's how it feels).

With the lemon taste still in your mouth, drink a little bitter coffee, swirl it round your mouth, notice the effect, notice the contrasts. And then take a sip of southern comfort and notice the contrasts again. You will recognise that you have a sense of taste all over your mouth, including the roof of your mouth, your throat, neck and digestive canal.

If you're still unsure that the entire mouth can sense taste, put a little soy sauce on a finger, and without touching the tongue, spread it on just one side of the roof of your mouth, (or anywhere you feel is numb) notice the contrasts. Also, remember how toothpaste often gives a strong experience of minty freshness all over the mouth.

The Whole Body
Try eating raw turmeric (with lots of water because it dehydrates), feel it just under your skin for hours afterwards. Ginger or Curry have a similar effect. Maybe you will need to lie down for a few minutes to appreciate the sensations, it depends on how strong it is and how much you eat. And it all depends on what you like eating, because eating anything you don't want to sense afterwards is pointless.

Maybe try 5-6 medium cloves of garlic (with tomatoes and oil). After a half hour there is usually a tingling effect under the skin. And after 2 hours, the tingling sensation is still there, and probably a warmth in central body. If after two hours you then eat sweet chocolate the tingling sensation stops. This will let your body actually experience what happens when sugars meet enzymes and you confuse your body with luxurious combinations.

Chocolate tastes so good in the mouth, but then it seems to go straight to the stomach... it's an interesting warm central feeling but it doesnt fill the whole body.

Foods literally fill our body, and if they are strong we feel them under the skin. After even six hours of fasting our inner-body tastes are far more diverse, as described above.

Please continue with Savouring Scents

Back to Chapter Six : Smelling and Tasting
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