Scientists have identified a potential seventh taste - a sensitivity towards carbohydrates - which may be behind the craving for starchy foods such as bread, pasta and rice.
Researchers from Australia have shown that sensitivity to carbohydrates, which they call the seventh taste, increases intake of starchy food and a larger waistline.
The team had previously named fat as the "sixth taste".
The fat taste studies explored the tongue's ability to detect fat as a distinct taste similar to people's ability to sense sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami - the five traditional or classic tastes.
The research looked at two carbohydrates, maltodextrin and oligofructose, both found in common foods like bread, pasta and rice.
The study later analysed preferences of 34 adults and found significant correlations between how sensitive someone was to carbohydrates, their dietary intake and their waist measurement.
Those who were most sensitive to the carbohydrate taste ate more of these foods and had a larger waist.
This line of taste research was important because the increasing problem of diet-related chronic illnesses, such as obesity, required a greater understanding of the drivers of the food we consume.
Increased energy intake, in particular greater intakes of energy-dense foods, is thought to be one of the major contributors to the global rise of obesity.
Interestingly, what we found in the fat taste studies was that the people who were more sensitive to fat consumed less fatty foods, but it is the other way around for carbohydrates.
The individuals who are more sensitive to the 'taste' of carbohydrate also have some form of subconscious accelerator that increases carbohydrate or starchy food consumption.
