[David Wharfe]

David Wharfe asked the Naked Scientists:
Scientists have conjectured recently that taste has evolved as a quick method to determine nutritional value. Previously it was thought that taste was a kind of reward system to encourage nutritious eating.

So how come water (surely one of the most important things to ingest) isn't nicer than, say, chocolate?


What do you think?

[lyner]

If we were to like only very pure, tastless, water  we would be too fussy and miss out on many sources of useful water. We actually do prefer some flavours of  water i.e. drinks - beer / coke/ orange juice and often choose them in preference to plain water.
For self preservation we reject 'bad' tasting water, of course.
Liking chocolate is not innate. It is rejected by many people who have never tasted it before - like beer, whiskey and spicy food. We need to acquire many of our 'best' tastes.

[Kryptid]

Since we need water often to survive, we never venture far from some ready supply of it. I think ready availability makes things less pleasurable than if they were rare. You can see something like this with air. You need air more often than anything else, yet you do not experience ecstacy every time you inhale. Pleasure gives you a drive to find something. Since air is all around you, there is no need for such a drive. I suspect something similar with water.

[lyner]

I think that, if you found a muddy waterhole after two days in the desert, it would taste pretty damn'd good and the air you breathed after being in prison would smell pretty good, too.