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We May Be Able to Identify Fatty Foods by Smell

Our noses may be capable of such high performances, experts say

Jan 31, 2014 12:58 GMT  ·  By
The human nose may have evolved to smell fatty foods
   The human nose may have evolved to smell fatty foods

A new study conducted by experts at the Monell Chemical Senses Center has determined that people are apparently able to detect low or high fat contents in their foods by simply smelling the products they are preparing to eat. This ability remained hidden to scientists until now. 

The research was carried out on a total of 108 test subjects, in both Philadelphia, the US, and the Netherlands. Each participant had to sniff a batch of milk, without knowing the amount of fat that the sample contained. Scientists say that the results were amazing.

Most of the test subjects proved able to identify milk batches with the highest fat concentration in the study sample. Further details of the research and its conclusions appear in the January issue of the esteemed open-access journal PLoS ONE.

One potential explanation for why this ability may have appeared in humans is that fatty foods and foods with a high calorie count tend to provide more energy than lean foods. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense for people to be able to detect what products have the highest potential of providing them with sufficient energy, says Johan Lundström.

The expert, who holds an appointment as a psychologist at the MCSC, was the lead author of the PLoS ONE paper. “Detecting fat would have been very valuable for us” thousands of years ago, he explains.

Interestingly, the team was unable to find any differences in perception of fat, between for example overweight and normal-weight people, or between test subjects in the Netherlands and those in the US. This suggests that the ability is innate, and not developed through practice or customs.

The amount of fat present in the milk samples was carefully controlled. The milk itself was not purchased from farms, but rather made out of powdered milk. “The only thing that these powders differed in was the amount of fat. Otherwise, the samples are identical,” Lundström says, quoted by NPR.

This research builds on previous investigations that suggested years ago that humans are able to smell pure fatty acids. To test this hypothesis, the team now plans to conduct additional studies to determine whether or not test subjects can smell high-fat concentrations in more complex foods.