Using our senses to measure quality and activity.

1. Organoleptics and Energetics
Dr. Michael Tims

2. Sensoritropic Enjoyment

3. Where does Taste Happen?

4. Omnivores and Taste

5. Taste
• Particularly important to omnivores
• Context based – small bitter in beer/coffee
expected and good

7. Bitters in Digestion
• Appetite induction based on improved circulation in
abdominal organs (Weiss, Herbal Medicine)
• Increases sympathetic excitability over time – tonic
properties
• Post ingestion phenomena – postprandial
hyperaemia

8. Postprandial Hyperaemia
• Stimulates metabolic activities:
– digestive secretions
– chyme movement
– nutrient absorption
– removal metabolic waste

9. Anticipatory Process
• The body responds to strong bitters as if
ingesting a toxin
• Foraging behavior ingesting moderate bitters
occurs in many ingested foods

10. Caffeine
• Active bitter in Cephalic phase of digestion -
chewing, tasting and swallowing
• Other coffee compound, quinide, responsible for
bitter taste
– Different bitters elicit varying responses
– Hedonistic bitter quality not a good indicator of particular
cephalic chemosensory response
McMullen, MK et al. (2015) Bitters: Time for a New Paradigm. Evidence-Based CAM.
Epub 2015 May 14.

11. Gentian and Wormwood
• Increased vascular tone
• Reduced cardiac workload
• Occurred with liquids not capsules
• Increased peripheral vascular resistance by eliciting
cephalic chemosensory reflex responses

12. Oral Bacteria and Sensory Effects
• Oral microbes able to hydrolyze glycosidic compounds
in grape extract, resulting in the release of terpenes,
benzenic derivatives, and C6 alcohols.
– Terpenes - flowery or citrus aromas
– Benzenic compounds (β-phenylethanol) - rose aromas
• Ability to hydrolyze and resulting aromatic compounds
produced depend upon type of oral microbe present.
Muñoz-González, C., Cueva, C., Pozo-Bayón, M.A., Moreno-Arribas, M.V. 2015.
Ability of human oral microbiota to produce wine odorant aglycones from
odourless grape glycosidic aroma precursors. Food Chemistry 187: 112-119.

13. Olfactory receptors detect water-soluble or
volatile chemicals
Sense of Smell

14. Defining Odorant
• Can’t be done chemically
• Chemicals shaped alike do not smell the same
• Inherently biological – an odorant binds to an odor
receptor that produces a biological response.

15. Physiological
• > 400 olafactory receptors neurons
• Potential to discriminate trillions of odorants
• Is there a combinatorial code?
• Cognition in most primitive brain centers – limbic
system/frontal lobe
• Unlike taste neurons, can regenerate – evolutionary
importance

16. Plants and Volatiles
• Volatiles stored liquids or resins
– Flowers – glands
– Leaves – trichomes, glands
• Compounds evaporate exposed to air
• Generally monoterpenes, found in different families,
genus and species

17. • Arabidopsis terpene synthase produces many different
terpene compounds from the same substrate or
starting material
• First enzymatic product an unstable intermediate
• Converts to a mix of stable end products
• Results in consistent ratio of monoterpenes
• Why this complex signature?

19. Sensory Ecology of Medicinal Plants
• “Sensation is a complex biocultural process through which
humans acquire information about their environment”
• Genetics, chemosensory experience, dietary factors,
individual background and cultural influence alter how we
perceive the energetics or quality of plant medicine
• Studied the sensibilities of two tribes
– homeopathic Yora
– allopathic Matsigenka
• Occupy neighboring region, but culturally unrelated
Sheperd, GH. (2004) A Sensory Ecology of Medicinal Plant Therapy in Two Amazonian
Societies. American Anthropologist. 106(2): 252–266

20. Differences - Matsigenka
• Many medicines are bitter and poisonous
• Treat by applying or ingesting plants
• Use the quality of plants soul
• Pathogenic agents react to the noxious component in
plant and flee – dose dependent
• Cautious with Western pharmaceuticals

21. Differences - Yora
• Herbs act like magnets to draw illness out because of
likeness – like cures like
• Take pharmaceuticals very easily – white man
medicine effective against white man illness

22. Similar
• Both tribes interpreted illness through the metaphor
of predation
• The links between the predatory cycle and illness
manifest through specific sensory experience
• Adopted a number of the same alkaloid rich plants
for similar medicinal uses
• Significant similarity in plant families used
medicinally

23. Energetic Qualities
Odor: fragrant, pungent, aromatic, sweet, sour,
pleasant, fresh, yeasty, nutty, characteristic (mint,
lemon, ginger, vanilla, anise, cinnamon, chocolate),
foul, putrid, rancid, fishy, burnt, spoiled, sulfurous,
dull, mild, faint, strong, musty, moldy, spicy
Taste: Bitter, sweet, salty, sour, bland, neutral, umami,
astringent, cooling, mucilaginous, hot, pungent,
tingling, acrid, sharp, biting, warming
Temperature: cold, cool, hot, warm, neutral

24. Energetics of the body
• Hands warm or cold
• Skin moist or dry
• Personality energetics
• Voice quality
• Sleep patterns
• Fast or slow digestion
• Strong or slow immune response
• Tongue

26. Long Term Goal
• Can you begin to develop a method to evaluate the
quality of an herb and how that quality can be used
to alter a quality in the body?
• Can you see patterns in the relationship between
tastes and phytochemical classification?
• Can you see patterns in the relationship between
pharmacological activity and qualities of the herbs?

27. How are you going to achieve the goal
• Compare different systems – Course page
– Jim McDonald
– Ruth Trickey
– Kiva Rose
• Explore different systems
– Ayurvedic
– TCM
• Hands on – take Mat Med and/or QA courses