I am reminded by a friend (far away) about taste the “5” senses of taste, and now the “6th”. I heard about this phenomenon about 8 years ago while visiting New York. Randomly I met a pair of scientists who were working on taste and exactly this topic.

With fats being easily accessible and commonly consumed in diets today, our taste system may become de-sensitised to the taste of fat over time, leaving some people more susceptible to overeating fatty foods. Fat is definitely a taste to be added to the list, as human’s consume more and more fat each day that passes.

But once you add fat, add “spice” because there is no taste as important as spice, the sensation of a food that zings you. In fact, we can build tolerance to the varying degrees of burning, so our tongues get trained by practicing.

So far, there have been no scientific studies of Spice’s effects on the human brain, but we do know that the cannabinoid compounds found in Spice products act on the same cell receptors as THC, the primary psychoactive component of marijuana. Some of the compounds found in Spice, however, bind more strongly to those receptors, which could lead to a much more powerful and unpredictable effect.