Thursday, April 12, 2012

Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters


Why do we like or even crave certain foods and avoid others?

Named and defined by the author, a Yale neurobiologist studying how the brain creates images of smells, "neurogastronomy" is a new science of eating that focuses on food favors.

Drawing on brain studies and food studies, this book explains the new field of investigation and how it holds "the promise of putting healthy eating on a new scientific basis."

A key premise of this book is that "humans have a much more highly developed sense of flavor because of the complex processing that occurs in the large human brain." Gordon Shepherd dismisses the idea that foods hold flavor as a common misconception and asserts that while foods contain molecules, the flavor of those molecules is actually created in our brains.

How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters
by Gordon M. Shepherd
Columbia University Press, 2011

Continued in The Book Stall