why does the tongue have taste buds?

Answer 1

Well, several reasons. To make good food desirable, so we don't starve to death. It's important in natural selection to reproduce, and you can't do that if you're dead. The only thing better than eating for most people is sex, and that feels even better for the same reason.

Second, to keep us from eating spoiled or poison food. It isn't a perfect system, but it keeps us out of trouble much of the time. The sense of smell is tied to taste very closely, thus our nose is close to our mouth (I'm just making this up).

Lastly, I for one am glad they're not on my feet, as I would get tired of wiping my food on my toes just to taste it first.

Answer 2

historically organisms use a series of senses to test their surrounding envirnments. For example Some amphibians have chemoreceptors (tastebuds) on their hands to sense what the salinity is of their environment. They use this for regulating osmosis and diffusion. Our physiology has developed in a way that the most usefull place for us to have chemoreceptors is on our tongues. This makes sence because the mouth is the main entrance for just about everything into our bodies, so having taste buds there is a great way for us to recognize when something that isn't suppose to go into our system is trying to. For example, if we didn't have taste buds, then there would apear to be no difference in drinking water or isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol). Of course we know that drinking the alcohol is very toxic, so you want to mistakingly drink it. That is why we have taste buds on our tongue.

Answer 3

It is an evolutionary adaptation to the possibility that we might ingest spoiled or rotten food.

Bad food tastes bad because our taste buds have been trained to apply a negative response to our brains.

If we did not have these sense organs, then early in life we would eat bad food, get sick, and die. Thus removing the "no taste bud" gene from the pool.

Answer 4

The tounge has taste buds so that the brain can tell what's going into the mouth. The tastebuds are wired to the brain such that certain chemicals which are poisonous taste bitter, and we reject them, but things we needed a lot of (but back when we evolved were rare), like fat and sugar and salt, taste really good. Otherwise, we'd have no way to tell beforehand what might be really poisonous and what is actually good.

Answer 5

You'd look funny tasting your food by touching it with your elbow!!!

Really- over 10,000 taste buds reside on your tongue to let your brain know what your mouth is doing. This along with smell (The Limbic area of your brain) can then say "Hey Dude---don't eat that...It's a cat, or whatever.

Hope that helps.

Answer 6

Taste buds are like skin cells, they get replaced over and over all the time. So if you brushed a few off, they would come right back.

Answer 7

everything we have on our bodies are some sort of evolutionary special feature.

so, what do your tastebuds do? they make you like food! because of this, we get pleasure out of eating, so we'll do it. follow? when we were monkey men so many thousands of years ago, we needed to eat as much as we could or we'd starve. although we're pretty much rid of this problem, they haven't gotten lost yet, because our bodies are still stuck on over drive. this is also why it's easier to gain weight than loose it--because our bodies are trying to keep us from starving.

Answer 8

because plants that are bitter tend to be toxic and killed everyone who couldn't tell the difference. Also your body needs salt, so you have the ability to detect that as well. sour, because unripe fruit can make you sick and sweet because ripe fruit does not.

Welcome to the Jungle.

Answer 9

Bitter usually means poison, sweet usually means nourishment, sour I'm not sure, but your body is identifying what is coming in and what it is all about.

Answer 10

Would you rather they were placed in your anus? If they were. all your food would taste like faeces, not just KFC and McDonald's.