Taste It Before It Gets Old!

Caryn ZarubaEngineering Design and Development

The physical texture of the food, its resistance to chewing, the sound of it being chewed, its temperature and

its smell, all fuse with taste into a complete sensory experience,

referred to simply as taste.

The physical texture of the food, its resistance to chewing, the sound of it being chewed, its temperature and

its smell, all fuse with taste into a complete sensory experience,

referred to simply as taste.

Introduction

• Across the world, diet-related chronic disease rates are escalating, threatening the public health leading to a multifarious amount of health issues. Throughout a lifetime, humans will experience negative sensory changes where taste and smell deteriorate.

Problem

• As humans age, the sense of taste depreciates, and diet-related problems occur where over flavoring and over salting leads to health problems which leads to malnutrition and further damage taste buds.

History

• 1968 – miracle berry• Tom always feels hunger when fed through a tube• People with sensitive taste buds tend to eat less while people

with less receptive taste buds eat more • Mindful eating over counting calories

Effects

• Grocery shopping selections

• Poor food preparation choices

• Difficulty ensuring a properly balanced diet

• Protein and calorie loss

• Malnourishment

• Other health issues: high blood pressure, diabetes, respiratory complications, osteoarthritis, some cancers, hypertension, obsesity, and heart disease.

• Decrease in fluids

Justification

• Health• Education

Student Solution

• Create a tablet for the elderly to use before they consume a meal so that they enjoy their meal and benefit by acquiring the protein and calories they need. Also be approved by FDA.

• Copper and zinc are both essential minerals you need for survival. Copper contributes to skin and hair by helping you make melanin, the brown-black pigment that helps protect your skin from the sun's harmful rays. Zinc helps cells in your body communicate with each other, aiding in nerve communication and hormone regulation. Zinc and copper work together and separately to control metabolism -- the series of chemical reactions that support your body's function.

• Zinc activates more than 100 enzymes -- the class of proteins that carry out chemical reactions, such as those that drive your metabolism. Getting enough zinc helps you make protein by taking the amino acids obtained from your diet and then assembling those amino acids into new proteins that contribute to tissue function. Zinc also affects your cells' metabolism by helping your cells regulate gene activity. This allows your cells to activate genes required for metabolic chemical reactions and then turn those genes back off when they're no longer needed.

• Zinc plays many diverse roles in enabling healthy growth and development and in promoting good health in general. The body needs it to:

* enable the activity of more than 200 biological enzymes* help manufacture proteins and genetic material* achieve normal growth and skeletal development* stimulate hair growth* develop taste perception* assist in hormonal activity, reproduction and lactation* carry out immune functions, such as protecting against infection and cancer

As you might surmise from this list, a deficiency of zinc can result in problems such as poor growth, difficulty in wound healing, loss of appetite, undesirable skin changes, and adverse effects on immune-system components.

Top Ten Highest in Zinc by Common Serving Size Zinc in 100g

Current Percent Daily Value

Seafood (Cooked Oysters) 78.6mg 524%Beef and Lamb (Cooked Lean Beef

Short ribs) 12.3mg 82%

Wheat Germ (Toasted) 16.7mg 111%

Spinach 0.8mg 5%

Pumpkin and Squash Seeds 10.3mg 69%

Cashew Nuts 5.6mg 37%

Cocoa Powder and Chocolate 6.8mg 45%Pork & Chicken (Cooked Lean Pork

Shoulder) 5mg 33%

Cooked Mung Beans 0.5mg 3%

Cooked White Mushrooms 0.9mg 6%

• Copper helps drive your metabolism by helping your cells produce energy. Your cells rely on a constant supply of energy to function, since the millions of chemical reactions occurring in your cells require some energy input. Copper helps you create adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, a molecule your cells use as fuel. Copper helps your body metabolize and use iron and also helps your brain metabolize neurotransmitters, which are the chemicals your brain cells use to communicate with each other.

Top Ten Foods Highest in Copper Copper in 100gCurrent Percent Daily

Value

Seafood (Cooked Oysters) 5.71mg 285%

Kale 1.5mg 75%

Cooked Shiitake Mushrooms 0.9mg 45%

Sesame Seeds 4.08mg 204%

Cashew Nuts 2.22mg 111%

Pulses (Cooked Chickpeas) 0.35mg 18%

Dried Prunes 0.61mg 31%

Avocadoes 0.19mg 10%

Soft Goat Cheese 0.73mg 37%

Fermented Soy Foods (Tempeh) 0.56mg 28%

Combined Antioxidant Effect

• Copper and zinc also work together to support your metabolism. Both minerals help to activate the enzyme copper-zinc superoxide dismutase, also called CuZnSOD. This enzyme serves as an antioxidant, which means that it protects your cells from harmful reactive oxygen species, a group of chemicals that form as a natural byproduct of your cells' metabolism. Since your cells constantly produce new reactive oxygen species, they rely on antioxidants to continually neutralize the compounds and prevent cell damage. Getting enough copper and zinc helps ensure that you can effectively clear away reactive oxygen species, so that your cells can continue to function properly.

• Men and women men respectively need 11 and 8 milligrams of zinc daily, according to the Linus Pauling Institute, and all adults need 900 micrograms of copper. Oysters, meat, poultry, and nuts -- such as almonds, peanuts and cashews -- provide sources of both copper and zinc. Vitamin supplements also help ensure you get enough of both minerals. However, take caution if you opt to take mineral supplements -- very large doses of zinc interfere with copper absorption, potentially putting you at risk for a deficiency. Talk to your doctor to learn about a safe zinc and copper supplement dosage.

Engineering Concepts?

• The ways that this applies to STEM are numerous in the sense that this idea may incorporate many different points from the fields that STEM collaborates with. The idea in itself is not flawless because it's only an idea and while it can be tweaked and worked with it still is not yet ready to be put into an absolute test of determining if it is plausible or not. Fixing and enhancing taste is something that, while seemingly simple, is actually a very complicated subject that requires the expertise of several different fields.

• If we were able to discover a way to create an additive that could help our foods taste more vivid while having less harmful effects on our health. Finding a way to make sure that it does not damage us would be a way to incorporate different forms of bio-chemistry in order to see how it would affect individual humans. The different aspects of discovering how to make this work would require extensive testing and hypothesizing on the subject STEM really applies with this because in order to determine to applicability the idea, there must be research done on how useful it would be if we succeeded.You have to do a lot of critical thinking on the idea and think about all the different factors that play into the construction of your prototype.

• The practices of STEM are often also utilized because as mentioned before, this prototype would require aspects from all parts of STEM. It would require a higher form of them that in turn would require extensive critical thinking and testing to find out whether or not it is harmonious will all aspects of STEM and if it could work well enough to be devoted to as a project that could potentially give a revolutionary/lasting benefit to a real problem that persists in the world.

Expert concepts and parameters

• What research is being done?• The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication

Disorders (NIDCD) supports basic and clinical investigations of taste and smell disorders at institutions across the nation. Some of these studies are conducted at chemosensory research centers, where scientists work together to uncover how our gustatory system works.

• Some of the most recent research in this area focuses on identifying the key receptors expressed by our taste cells and understanding how they work. So far, researchers have identified the taste cells and receptors for detecting sour, sweet, bitter, and umami tastes. Researchers are also working to develop a better understanding of how sweet and bitter substances attach to their targeted receptors. The goal is to develop non-caloric artificial sweeteners and bitter blockers, substances that block the bitter taste of some foods or medicines.

• A recent NIDCD-funded study has shown that small variations in our genetic code can raise or lower our sensitivity to sweet tastes, which might influence a person’s desire for sweets. Scientists have also made progress in understanding how our sense of taste changes as we age. Older adults often decide what to eat based on how much they like or dislike certain tastes. Scientists are looking at how and why this happens in order to develop more effective ways to help older people cope better with taste problems.

• Scientists are also working to find out why some medications and medical procedures can have a harmful effect on our senses of taste and smell. They hope to develop treatments to help restore the sense of taste to people who have lost it.

• Scientists are gaining a better understanding of why the same receptor that helps our tongue detect sweet taste can also be found in the human gut. Recent research has shown that the sweet receptor helps the intestine to sense and absorb sugar and turn up the production of blood sugar-regulation hormones, including the hormone that regulates insulin release. Further research may help scientists develop drugs targeting the gut taste receptors to treat obesity and diabetes.

• Finally, taste cells—as well as sensory cells that help us smell—are the only sensory cells in the human body that are regularly replaced throughout life. Researchers are exploring how and why this happens in order that they might find ways to replace other damaged sensory cells.

• NIDCD-supported research in the chemosensory sciences include studies to:

• Promote the regeneration of sensory and nerve cells.• Prevent the effects of aging.• Develop new diagnostic tests.• Understand associations among chemosensory disorders,

altered food intake and diet, and major health risk factors (e.g., obesity and cardiovascular disease).

• Improve treatment methods and rehabilitation strategies.

Prototype

• Originally with zinc and shellfish ingredients• And then I made it with some miracle berry shit and added zinc,

I thought it tasted better as well as the neighbors and my family• Couldn’t buy chemicals as they were dangerous and violated

some health regulations and crevi.

Test plan/Procedure

• Figure out the ratio of ingredients/chemicals to use for the tablet• Ground it into powder• Then freaking make it into a tablet

Tesing and modiciation cycles

Data collected

Information presentation and alaysis

./chart

Results

• There were significant results, hecka yeah• Miracle berry stuff is amazing

Conclusion

• With more research and observations and experimentation on how much each person should take bmi chart

Closing statement, questions, objections.

• Some ways to help enhance ability to taste food may include:• • -Taking a walk or exercising, inhaling and exhaling after

exercising has been known increase smell sensitivity which can help the sense taste.

• -Drinking water hydrates you and keeps your mouth moist which will in turn keep taste buds alive and healthier longer.

• -Obtaining Zinc supplements from vitamins or different shellfish can help strengthen taste buds.

• -Not smoking can help respiratory system and taste buds.• -Not eating when one is not hungry.• -Eating socially has been found to make food taste better than

when one is eating alone.• -Remaining in a humidified environment (especially during the

winter).• -Avoid foul smelling things.• -Add spices to your food.• -Don't drink as much alcohol, it raises blood pressure which can

directly correlate to how food tastes.• -Chew slower and allow for full taste.