Jellybelly TASTE TEST – Find out if what you SEE influences what you taste.

1) Divide the jelly belly into two groups (A & B). Each group should have one of each flavor.

2) Label paper with numbers 1-4

3) Place the jelly belly from group A on the paper. One jelly belly for each number

4) Put the jelly belly in from Group B into four cups so that your friend can’t see them.

5) Label these cups with the numbers 1-4. Make sure that the flavors of the group B have different numbers than the flavors from group A.

6) Tell your friend the names of the flavors they’ll be testing.

7) Get your friend to look at the jelly belly on the paper number 1 from group A and then taste the jelly belly and write down its flavor. DO the same thing with jelly belly’s number 2-4 on the paper.

8) Keep the colors of the jelly belly in group B hidden. Get your friend to close their eyes and taste the jelly belly’s. Write down the flavors the your friend says each Jelly belly taste like. You can even say that flavors are the same as before, but in different order. How many did your friend get right?

What happens
When you don’t see the color of the jelly belly, you often give the wrong answer.

Why
The senses of sight and taste are technically not related. But they can have a strong mental influence on each other.
Your friend couldn’t see the colors of the jelly belly. Jelly belly’s don’t have a strong smell either. Taste was the only sense left.
Your taste bud cells have a pit of a very definite shape. When a substance with the matching chemical shape comes along, the receptor cell send a signal to the brain. This gives the brain clues as to what you are eating.

Quiz
Is eyesight important when we eat?

IN sighted people, eyes are the first sense that decides whether something looks good enough to eat. Colors are very important. Would you eat a blue burger? Food companies add color to food to make it look better, although the test stays the same. People like to se foods in colors that they expect. Butter is pale yellow. But people think butter should be bright yellow, so some manufactures add yellow color to the butter.