Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives

by Daniel J. Levitin

It’s tempting to think of taste only for the pleasure it brings—a good meal, a fine wine, your favorite dessert, your loved one’s skin. But taste is an important sense for other reasons. Taste deficits alter food choices and lead to poor nutrition, weight loss, and reductions in immune-system function when we don’t ingest the vitamins and minerals we need. In addition, taste helps us prepare the body to digest food by triggering the production of saliva, alongside gastric, pancreatic, and intestinal fluids. The pleasurable feelings from eating tasty food become more important in old age when other sources of sensory gratification—like physical contact—may have become compromised or are less frequent.