Crusty bread, hot chips, fresh noodles, steaming rice...you get the drift. No matter where we are from, we love carbs, and - gluten or otherwise - their lure is hard to resist.
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Scientists now believe that our fondness for complex carbohydrates may be down to the discovery of a potential sixth taste, that of starchiness.
As outlined in a new study in the journal Chemical Senses, food scientist Juyun Lim and her team at Oregon State University set out to isolate whether starches, or glucose oligomers, could be detected on the tongue alongside the five basic tastes, sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami.
It has long been assumed that, because complex carbs are quickly broken down by enzymes in our mouth, which then detects the flavour of shorter chains of sugars, starch itself did not have a detectable taste. But, asked Lim, why would we eat - and often crave - something that we are unable to detect, flavour-wise?
"Every culture has a major source of complex carbohydrate. The idea that we can't taste what we're eating doesn't make sense," she toldNew Scientist.
While sampling a range of solutions containing long and short carbohydrate chains, volunteers were able to pinpoint starch-like tastes.
"They called the taste 'starchy'," said Lim. "Asians would say it was rice-like, while Caucasians described it as bread-like or pasta-like. It's like eating flour.'"
The testing panel continued to detect the rice and flour notes even after being given a compound that blocks the detection of sweet tastes, suggesting humans are able to sense carbohydrates before they have been completely broken down into sugar molecules.
But starchiness has a way to go before officially being considered an independent taste.
The taste of fat has long been slated as a contender for the sixth spot, as has kokumi, described as a hearty mouthfeel. The taste of calcium is also being investigated as are metallic tastes and the flavours of amino acids and carbonated drinks.
As was the case with the discovery and subsequent taste labelling of umami in 2009, scientists need to find specific tongue receptors for complex carbohydrates and prove that they trigger a beneficial physiological response in addition to isolating their recognisable taste before starchiness can be labelled the sixth taste.
As any athlete or expecting mother knows, starchy foods are a valuable slow-release energy source, which may fill the criteria of the taste of starch's physiological benefit.
"I believe that's why people prefer complex carbs," said Lim. "Sugar tastes great in the short term, but if you're offered chocolate and bread, you might eat a small amount of the chocolate, but you'd choose the bread in larger amounts, or as a daily staple."
