3D printed food can be used as an engaging tool to conduct qualitative research.

Goal

Involving communities to conduct widespread qualitative research around taste and flavour perception using 3D printed food

Background

The tongue map or taste map is a common misconception that different sections of the tongue are exclusively responsible for different basic tastes. It is illustrated with a schematic map of the tongue, with certain parts of the tongue labeled for each taste. Using gastrophysics research, we prepared 3 different edible tongue maps – brown, rectilinear and bitter; green, angular and sour; and pink, circular and sweet, respectively, which we distribute at festivals, conferences and events in order to collect qualitative data around taste and flavour perception using 3D printed food.