Journey #2

Test your taste

Visceral discomfort

Tasks:

1: Eat a chip with ketchup

2: Eat a fruit with Nutella

3: Eat a chip with Nutella

4: Eat a fruit with ketchup

Goal:

Complete all tasks to get unlimited free fruit and chips.

Purpose:

We all have different sorts of food growing up, we acquire a taste for certain foods and form conceptions for the way they are suppose to be consumed. Why do we feel uncomfortable or weird when presented with modification in those ways of consuming food. 

Taste bitter, salty, sour, astringent, sweet, pungent, and umami. Food consumption consists of two key ingredients 'flavor' and 'base'. Example: Salty fries are base that can be comfortably consumed without any flavoring, but we like to have it with umami ketchup as it adds some richness to its bland taste. We like to add sugar to naturally bitter chocolate, and in some cases even enjoy it with some hot pungent chili.

As students, most of us sometimes thrive on free food. This was a good enough incentive for people to try this experiment out. I wished to test how uncomfortable would people let their taste buds feel to get some good free food.

About 10 people actively participated in the experiment, many were curious but lost interest after understanding the task. Out of the 10 participants, about 6 happily completed all the tasks even though they felt weird, and didn't find it completely repulsive after trying it.

Note: Each participant was asked about their dietary restrictions and permission to record, before commencing the experiment.

Conclusion:

This experiment had some elements from game design and proved to be a fun tool for people to challenge their taste preconceptions. I think it can be developed into a fun game or an app for friends to try weird food combinations and have fun while doing so.