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Senses Experiment: Tasting - With Your Nose?

How your sense of smell helps you taste foods. Without your nose, you may not be able to tell the difference between foods — especially if the foods all have the same texture (for instance, jelly beans with various flavors, gloppy yogurt and pudding, or slices of different fruits and vegetables).

  • A grown-up to help
  • A friend or two
  • A blindfold
  • Foods to taste, such as different flavored jelly beans, different fruit and vegetable slices, or a variety of yogurts and puddings
  • Spoons, if necessary
  • A cup of drinking water for everyone

  1. Blindfold a friend.
  2. Ask your friend to pinch his or her nose.
  3. Offer your friend one flavor of the food at a time.
  4. Can he or she identify it? (Your friend might want a drink of water between the different foods.)
  5. Offer the same food and tell your friend to unpinch his or her nose. Now does your friend know what it is?