Lickable Screen Can Recreate Any Taste Or Flavour Without Food

A Japanese inventor has managed to create a machine that allows you to taste a bunch of different flavours without technically eating anything.

We've all been there when a food craving hits and we desperately want it in and around our mouths. Whether you're limited by money, proximity, diet or allergies, it takes a lot of willpower not to give in to the cravings.

But Homei Miyashita might have created the device that will change the way we deal with this scenario.

He's created the Norimaki Synthesizer, which allows you to lick a metal prod and taste a bunch of different flavours.

Miyashita was working off the same principle as digital sight. Think of how your computer device or smartphone screen creates the images that you're looking at with just three simple colours: red, green and blue.

User:Bb3cxv (Creative Commons)

It mashes up these colours in a variety of ways, in tiny pixels, that help bring about text, video, images and more.

The same concept exists with our tongues, which are able to detect sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savoury umami flavours. Norimaki had the idea that if a device was able to simulate these five flavours in a variety of ways, it would hypothetically be able to reproduce the taste of a burger, for example.

The Norimaki Synthersizer consists of colour-coded gels that are made from agar, a jelly-like substance. These gels are placed in long tubes and are housed in a copper chamber.

To simulate the flavours, the gels have glycine, to create the taste of sweet, citric acid for sour, sodium chloride for salty, magnesium chloride for bitter, and glutamic sodium for savoury umami.

Warner Bros. Pictures

When you press the gels against your tongue, all the gels activate and interact with each other to create the taste you're looking for.

Tests so far have been able to recreate things like gummy candy and sushi. Imagine getting to taste something so beautiful but not actually have to pay for it and eat it.

At the moment, the device is pretty bulky and certainly isn't ready for the mass market. However, if it proves to be successful and there's an appetite for it in the public, there will no doubt be some advancements made until it could potentially fit inside your pocket.

Topics: News, Technology

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie