Apples and Potatoes Taste the Same Without Smell

Here's a mind-bending party trick: blindfold someone, have them plug their nose, then feed them a bite of raw apple and raw potato. They won't be able to tell which is which.

This isn't magic—it's neuroscience exposing how little your tongue actually does.

Your Tongue Is Basically Useless

The tongue can only detect five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. That's it. Meanwhile, your nose can distinguish thousands of different smells through olfactory receptors that connect directly to the brain's memory and emotion centers.

When you eat, volatile chemical compounds from food rise through the back of your throat into the retronasal passage—a shortcut between your mouth and nose. This is where the real flavor magic happens. What you think of as "taste" is actually about 80% smell.

The Apple-Potato Paradox

Raw apples and potatoes have remarkably similar properties when you strip away their aromas:

• Both are crisp and watery in texture
• Both register as mildly sweet on the tongue
• Both have subtle bitter and sour notes
• Neither has strong salty or umami characteristics

Block the airflow to your nose, and suddenly your brain has almost nothing to work with. The apple's fruity esters and the potato's earthy aldehydes never reach your olfactory bulb. Your tongue detects "crunchy, slightly sweet thing" and shrugs.

Why This Matters Beyond Party Tricks

This phenomenon explains why food tastes like cardboard when you have a cold. You're not actually losing your sense of taste—your tongue works fine. You're losing olfactory input, which does the heavy lifting in flavor perception.

It's also why wine tasters and professional chefs obsess over aroma. The smell delivers complexity; the taste just confirms whether something is sweet, salty, sour, bitter, or savory. Everything else—the "chocolate notes" in coffee, the "grassy finish" in olive oil—comes from your nose, not your tongue.

Next time you eat, try plugging your nose mid-bite. The flavor will vanish almost instantly, leaving behind only basic taste signals. It's a humbling reminder that your tongue is just the opening act. Your nose is the real star of the show.