职称英语理工A类阅读理解题精讲2
发布时间：2013/8/22 14:41:19 来源：城市网学院 编辑：admin
The research involved 87 carefully screened participants who sampled salty foods such as soup and chips，on multiple occasions，spread out over weeks5.Test subjects were 45 men and 42 women，reportedly healthy，ranging in age from 20 to 40 years.The sample was #posed of individuals who were not actively modifying their dietary intake and did not smoke cigarettes.They rated the intensity of taste on a #monly used scientific scale，ranging from barely detectable to strongest sensation of any kind.
“Most of US like the taste of salt.However，some individuals eat more salt，both because they like the taste of saltiness more，and also because it is needed to block other unpleasant tastes in food.”said Hayes.“Supertasters，people who experience tastes more intensely，consume more salt than nontasters do.Snack foods have saltiness as their primary flavor，and at least for these foods，more is better，so the supertasters seem to like them more.”
However，supertasters also need higher levels of salt to block unpleasant bitter tastes in foods such as cheese，Hayes noted.“For example，cheese is a wonderful blend of dairy flavors from fermented milk，but also bitter tastes from ripening that are blocked by salt，”he said.“A supertaster finds low-salt cheese unpleasant because the bitterness is too pronouncedo6.”
Hayes cited research done more than 75 years ago by a chemist named Fox and a geneticist named Blakeslee，showing that individuals differ in their ability to taste certain chemicals.As a result，Hayes explained，we know that a wide range in taste acuity exists，and this variation is as normal as variations in eye and hair color.
“Some people，called supertasters，describe bitter #pounds as being extremely bitter，while others.called nontasters，find these same bitter #pounds to be tasteless or only weakly bitter，”he said.“Response to bitter #pounds is one of many ways to identify biological difterences in food preference because supertasting7 is not limited to bitterness. (476)
