Learning English

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Learn more about food
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• Talking at the table
• Eating for two
• Dancing for the brain

Introduction

Could bitter foods be better for your health? Beth and Phil discuss this and teach you some useful new vocabulary.

This week's question

How many different basic flavours can humans taste?

a) 4?
b) 5?
c) 6?

Listen to the programme to hear the answer.

Vocabulary

microbiome
the collection of microorganisms found in a specific part of the body

suppress
stop something from happening or operating

tastebuds
flavour receptors found on the tongue and in the mouth

undesirable trait
an unwanted negative characteristic

mainstream
something that the majority of people would use or like

a degree of
a small but significant amount of something

TRANSCRIPT

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Phil
Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Phil.

Beth
And I’m Beth. Phil, I'm going to start this episode with grapefruit - I've got some here - do you want some?

Phil
Er, I'm not that keen on grapefruit - they're too bitter for me.

Beth
Oh, that's a shame, because this episode is all about bitter food. It has actually been linked to a number of health benefits. So maybe you should take my grapefruit.  

Phil
I might not like it that much, but in this programme, we’ll be finding out how bitter foods can benefit our health. And, of course, we’ll be learning some useful new vocabulary.

Beth
That should give you a taste of what's coming up, but before that, if you want to learn vocabulary to talk about world events - search for our News Review podcast - we look at vocabulary about a major news story every week. But, back to this episode - I have a question for you, Phil. How many different basic flavours can humans taste? Is it:

a)    4?
b)    5? or,
c)    6?

Phil
Hmmm, I can think of bitter, sweet, salty and sour - so I'm going to go with four. I think we can taste 4 basic flavours.

Beth
OK, Phil, I’ll reveal the correct answer later. Leyla Kazim presents 'The Food Programme' on BBC Radio 4. Here she is talking about some of the possible benefits of bitter food.

Leyla Kazim
New research has found a remarkable link between bitter foods and our health. It seems they have an incredible ability to interact with our gut microbiome, suppress feelings of hunger, control glucose release and even counter chronic inflammation in the body. Could bitter be the answer at the tip of our tastebuds?

Beth
Bitter foods can interact with our gut microbiome. A microbiome is a collection of microorganisms that can be found in a particular part of the body. It includes fungi, bacteria and viruses. Microorganisms in our gut play an important role in the digestive process - they are our gut microbiome.

Phil
If we suppress something then we stop it from happening or operating. We heard that bitter foods can suppress hunger feelings. This means that they stop people feeling hungry. If we try to suppress a feeling, we are trying to stop it.

Beth
Leyla asks if bitter foods are the answer at the tip of our tastebuds. Normally we'd say that something that we can't quite remember is on tip of our tongue. Here we have tastebuds, which are the receptors on our tongue and inside our mouths that can detect flavours, like bitterness.

Phil
So, it seems that bitter foods could be very beneficial, but they are not always the easiest foods to love. In BBC Radio 4's 'The Food Programme', presenter Leyla Kazim spoke to chef Alexina Anatole, who points out that we might be consuming more bitter food than we realise:

Alexina Anatole
I think it's a real perception issue with it. I think people are exposed to bitters way more than they think they are, but there's this perception of bitter and negativity, both in terms of emotions and food, right? Bitterness is generally an undesirable trait, but there are so many very very mainstream bitter things.

Leyla Kazim
Such as?

Alexina Anatole
Chocolate, coffee, alcohol, any alcohol has a degree of bitterness to it.

Beth
Alexina says that many people see bitterness as an undesirable trait. A trait is a characteristic, so an undesirable trait is a characteristic that people don't want. We often see bitterness as a bad thing. We also often use undesirable traits to refer to negative aspects of people's personalities.

Phil
Alexina points out that there are a number of mainstream things that have a bitter flavour. If something is mainstream, then it means it's ordinary and part of what most people consume - she listed chocolate and coffee as mainstream things.

Beth
The other mainstream thing mentioned was alcohol - we heard that it has a degree of bitterness. If something has a degree of something, then it has at least a small, but noticeable amount of it.

Phil
OK, now I think it's time to hear to the answer to your question.

Beth
Right, I asked how many basic flavours humans can taste.

Phil
And I guessed it was four.

Beth
Which, unfortunately was not the right answer. The answer is in fact five. The flavour that you missed is umami, which comes from a Japanese word and refers to a savoury flavour often found in grilled meats or broths.

Phil
OK, let’s recap the vocabulary we’ve learned, starting with, microbiome, the collection of microorganisms found in a specific part of the body.

Beth
Suppress means prevent from operating or happening.

Phil
Tastebuds are the receptors found on in the tongue and in the mouth that sense flavours.

Beth
An undesirable trait is a negative characteristic that we don't want.

Phil
If something is mainstream, then it is something that most people would use. It's not unusual.

Beth
And finally, a degree of something is a small, but noticeable amount of something. Once again, our six minutes are up! Remember to join us again next time for more topical discussion and useful vocabulary, here at 6 Minute English. Goodbye for now!

Phil
Bye!