Why does the coldness in drinks get exemplified after chewing mint flavoured gum?
In: Biology
When you eat something, the chemicals that give food its taste hang around in the mouth until they’re washed away. This is why things have an aftertaste. The “washing away” happens naturally when you produce saliva and swallow it, but you can also speed up that process by downing a glass of water, for example.
What happens with chewing gum is that the chemical called “menthol” that gives the gum its minty flavour hangs around in your mouth and gives you that feeling of fresh breath. When you drink something, the drink picks up the menthol and washes it all around your mouth, triggering the minty feeling everywhere. So, it’s not the coldness of the drink that gets enhanced, it’s actually the rinsing of menthol all around your mouth. The downside to this is that, because you’ve had a drink, you’re accelerating that process of washing away the minty menthol, and so that feeling of fresh breath won’t last as long after the drink.
There was another ELI5 on this, basically Menthol makes things feel colder because it raises the temperature threshold for your nerve endings making them more sensitive to cold temperatures.
ex·em·pli·fy
/iɡˈzempləˌfī/
Verb
be a typical example of.
synonyms:typify, epitomize, be a typical example of, serve as a typical example of, represent, be representative of,
Latest Answers