The Taste of Water

Everybody knows that water has no taste, right? That's a good thing when riding the long, hot trail and you need a good draw from your canteen that doesn't taste fruity or bitter. Well, I don't want flavor when I'm all hottened up. Don't be so sure there's no taste. A study indicates that mice are able to taste — more likely, maybe distinguish or discern that they are actually drinking water. Mice, critters, and people are designed to have many things in common, so it's likely that we can "taste" water as well.

Credit: Pixabay / Capri23auto

The Big Box Chain Store sells its own brand of water, and I think it tastes mighty find. But on the label, it lists the ingredients as purified water (as I wanted), some chemicals, and minerals to enhance flavor. Strikes me as odd that they're enhancing something that has no flavor, but that's just marketing. People have subjected brands of bottled water to taste tests as well. My speculation is that the testers were responding to the additives, not the water itself. Interestingly, two hours south of me, New York City tap water won a taste competition.

Being able to "taste" water is helpful so we can know that we're actually drinking the stuff and not something that looks very similar. Like other things we taste, this appears to be built into the tongue itself. This helps illustrate that our Creator cares about even seemingly little details.

Our tongues can sense five basic tastes with specialized nerve cells for each: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and umami (savory). But a new study suggests our tongues can detect another “taste”—tasteless water. A paper published in the journal Nature Neuroscience details this fascinating new research, which uses mice as the test subjects.

To lap up the rest of this short article, click on "Study: Tongues Can 'Taste' Tasteless Water". Of course, they don't know about the living water that all men and women need.