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When powerful cooking odours affect smell and taste, can these provide nourishment when saliva is swallowed?

When one walks past a series of powerful cooking smells which cause olfactory responses, one assumes that at least some of these might dissolve in the mouth to give taste responses also. Is there any nutritional value associated with swallowing the saliva? In other words if one is starving, can interactions with these odours provide a certain amount of nourishment

 

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Jon-Richfield says:

Theoretically some of the molecules in the aromas would indeed be captured by your saliva and nasal mucus. Some of them also would be digestible. In practice, since we would be speaking of milligrams at most, and possibly micrograms, their contribution to your diet would be too small to measure by any everyday standard or method. (In common sense terms, this means: "No")

As for the nourishment you get from the content of your saliva and respiratory mucus, that is more substantial, but it is not net nourishment; every bit of it was provided by your body, and at a slight loss.

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posted on 2010-09-06 18:43:10 | Report abuse

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translatrix says:

Does this concern inhalation of alcohol too? I think you don't even need saliva for that, it goes into the blood through the lungs. And you can definitely inhale enough alcohol to get dizzy. And it does have calories.

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posted on 2010-09-09 17:35:43 | Report abuse

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Jon-Richfield says:

Well done Translatrix! Trust you to think up a really disconcerting example. You are quite correct. I had not thought of alcohol in this connection, but it really is a (not very healthy) nutrient, and certainly would be absorbed by inhalation of vapour. Full marks!Ironically, though one normally thinks of ethanol as a fluid to drink (or not to drink, depending on one's principles, inclinations, and functional requirements), whereas ethyl ether is something that one inhales, spiking an alcoholic drink with ether apparently accelerates the onset of drunkenness.Not that I recommend reckless experimentation along any such lines.Cheers,Jon

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posted on 2010-09-09 19:11:33 | Report abuse


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petethebloke says:

The energy involved in moving the saliva to your mouth probably exceeds the energy (if any) that you gain from the smell.

It's a great thought though: feeding by inhalation.

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posted on 2010-09-07 08:36:27 | Report abuse

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Jon-Richfield says:

Feeding by inhalation? Whale sharks do it; why not us? ;-)

Actually, there is a thoroughly logical sense in which we do feed by inhalation. Oxygen is as much a food as say, sugar or salt. Interestingly, it is the only food that we routinely consume in its elementary form.

Just a thought!  :-)

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posted on 2010-09-07 09:10:38 | Report abuse

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petethebloke says:

You're right Jon. There's a whole area for further study. I wonder if the health-giving constituents of garlic are amongst those absorbed through the skin? That would be a further method of getting food.

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posted on 2010-09-07 09:55:46 | Report abuse

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Jon-Richfield says:

I have never researched that, but I have an idea that one can absorb at least some of the volatiles through the skin strongly enough for the err... aroma to appear on your breath. Certainly the smell can migrate from belly to exit via skin, and of course, lung.

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posted on 2010-09-07 12:21:54 | Report abuse


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