Why do steamed buns taste sweeter after exercise?

Last week at two o'clock in the afternoon, I went to a park near my home to climb a mountain. Since I had breakfast late, I didn't have lunch. But I was afraid that I would be too tired and hungry from climbing, so I bought a bun on the way. I thought that when I was tired and wanted to rest, I could eat it while resting.

After climbing for about thirty minutes, I felt a little hungry, so I found a cool place to sit down and took out the buns from my backpack... I took the first bite, hmm... Why does the dough of this bun taste so sweet? The taste seems very different from what I remember!

While enjoying this taste experience, I was thinking about the possibility of exercise changing taste . The more I thought about it, the more interesting it became...

The process of exercise increases the body's energy needs. In addition to using stored glycogen or fat, the body also drives people to eat as a solution to replenish energy, and enhancing taste may be one of the solutions. The next day, when I met with a friend, we somehow talked about this topic, and I thought, let's find out if anyone has done such research!

Taste changes

In fact, our sense of taste will change in many cases, such as physical or psychological stress, illness (colds can change the sense of taste), aging, etc. Various situations can cause changes in the body. Similarly, exercise can also bring about changes in the body's state, so it seems reasonable that it can affect the sense of taste.

Research on movement and taste

After returning home, try searching using English keywords such as "exercise, taste sensitivity..." Fortunately, I found the relevant research paper in the third result of the first page of Google search! Next, let me share with you what the study did and what the results were.

The literature mentions that past studies have found that exercise can affect the sense of taste. For example, after running a marathon, the sensitivity to sweetness increases, but after climbing a mountain, it decreases. In addition, there are also research reports that show little change in sweetness after extremely rigorous exercise.

Wait…I went hiking too, why are the results different? Actually...the mountain I climbed was very short. iPhone Health showed that I only climbed the height of a 30-story building. In other words, it was just a little exercise and not really mountain climbing.

This study aims to find out what effects different exercise intensities will have on humans' four basic taste sensitivities. The researchers recruited 10 healthy college students who had never exercised and asked them to conduct two exercise intensity tests:

●Low exercise intensity, VO2 max 50%

●High exercise intensity, VO2 max 70%

Note: VO2 Max: Maximum oxygen consumption, the maximum value of oxygen consumption per minute during exercise.

Blood was drawn before and after exercise, and participants were tested for four taste sensitivities. In addition to wanting to know the changes in taste sensitivity before and after exercise, I also want to know which body values ​​are related to taste.

After statistical analysis, the researchers found that after exercise, the threshold for sour taste is higher for high-intensity exercise than for low-intensity exercise (meaning that people are less sensitive to sour taste after high-intensity exercise); higher-intensity exercise will significantly lower the threshold for sweetness, which means that people will be more sensitive to sweetness after high-intensity exercise; as for the two tastes of salty and bitter, there is no significant difference regardless of the intensity of the exercise.

In addition, increased sweet taste sensitivity is strongly correlated with blood glucose concentration. Sensitivity to sour taste is directly related to changes in body temperature, but this only occurs during low-intensity exercise.

Want to make desserts more delicious? Eat after exercise.

This article is from Nutrition

※For more information, please see "Nutrition Notes"