Can a new nose improve our sense of taste?
A new device claims to be able to improve your sense of taste. All you do is put it on your nose. Matt Brady tries it out.
When presented with a claim that there's a very simple way to make meals taste better, and all you have to do is look like a fool for 10 minutes, we weren’t entirely convinced, but decided it was worth a go. After all, I look like a fool every day and no one ever calls me out for it. What harm could a few more minutes do?
The item in question is the ‘Olfactic Dog Nose’ produced by Lick Me I’m Delicious. As you might have observed in the above photo, it’s a fake nose.
How does it work?
First, you soak the nose in warm water, squeeze out the excess and put it on your own nose for 10 minutes, breathing only through your nostrils. After that, everything should taste better. So I eat half a mince pie, ready to compare the flavour with another half after I finish the test.
The instructions for the nose present some relatively credible suggestions on how the nose should work: “The warm wet air will travel through your nasal passage, moistening your mucous membranes, allowing them to function more efficiently.”
A minute or so in, I do feel a bit like my nose has cleared, but the nose quickly becomes cold – doesn’t that mean there’s no ‘warm wet air’ here anymore? Five minutes in, and it’s becoming very uncomfortable too.
The result
I make it to the time limit, but not happily. The end result is that my nose is wet, and the remainder of the mince pie tastes like it did before. In fairness, I think the dog nose did help to clear my own nose, but I would be tempted to put that down to the fact I’ve been breathing, heavily, solely through my nose for the last 10 minutes – and through an obstruction to boot. It hasn’t done anything for flavour.
Perhaps the real idea here was to see how many stupid journalists would take a photo of themselves wearing the nose. Hands in the air – you got me.
Second round
I emailed Lick Me I'm Delicious to ask if I had just been wound up, but they insisted that they were serious and told me to give it another go.
So I gave it another shot after our Christmas pudding taste test but I found it was the same as before. While my nose did clear (again), I'm honestly not convinced by the 'warm air' theory and think it's just the fact I've been huffing and puffing through my nose that really cleared it. Either way, it hasn't affected my sense of taste.
Wind up or winner? Let us know which one you think the dog nose is in the Comments below.
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