How did the five tastes evolve? Take a look, via Swetha Sivakumar

Human tastebuds can detect five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. But why did they evolve in the first place? Anthropologists have some theories.

Sweet: This taste signals a high-calorie food. Most vertebrates can taste sweetness. Mother’s milk is inherently sweet, so this creates a liking for sweet foods from infancy. But carnivorous animals, who do not need to pursue sweet foods, have very few sugar receptors, which suggests the use-it-or-lose-it theory when it comes to the perception of this taste.

Salty: This is an essential ingredient needed to maintain electrolyte levels in most animals. This explains why we all crave salt, and why some animals lick clay or rocks to get their quota.

Sour: This is essentially an orange flag that signals the presence of Vitamin C, an essential micronutrient. There is also a theory that the affinity for sourness helped early humans detect which fermented foods were safe to eat. Those that are acidic (such as yoghurt made using lactic acid or vinegar made using acetic acid) are safe since the acidic environment kills off the bad bacteria in these foods.

Bitter: Most toxic substances taste bitter and these tastebuds enable us to reject foods that might be dangerous. This is intuitive; even newborns reject bitter foods.

Umami: Recognised internationally only since the 1990s, this is a savoury flavour that signals a richness of protein.