Chopsticks and soup bowls will be developed that will 'hack' the tongue's work with electrical signals to feel saltiness and sourness

Overeating of salt leads to symptoms such as high blood pressure, but adding salt to food often tends to use a lot more because it tastes better. "Chopsticks" and "Miso soup" which might solve such a problem were developed by Dr. Niemesha · Ranashinha who was doing research at the National University of Singapore.

Augmented Flavors: Modulation of Flavor Experiences Through Electric Taste Augmentation - ScienceDirect
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0963996918303983

Hacking the Flavor of Food With Electric Chopsticks - IEEE Spectrum
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/hacking-the-flavor-of-food-with-electric-chopsticks-and-soup-bowls

Dr. Ranashinha developed a device that stimulates the taste bud (tears) of the tongue by sending a signal from the electrode and makes the taste felt in a pseudo manner. Two types of chopsticks and bowls are made, each of which has a built-in electrode in the part that contacts the tongue.

In the chopstick type device, a control unit with built-in microcomputer "Arduino" is attached to the part corresponding to the "head" of chopsticks, and the signal produced inside stimulates the organ of the tongue via chopsticks It is done. Since the lithium ion battery is built in the main body, it is not necessary to connect to an external device at the time of use.

The image actually used is like this. It seems that it seems to be hard to eat a little because the heavy equipment is settled on the head of the chopsticks, but if further development is to be made in the future, improvements such as incorporating the device into the body of the chopsticks are added It is likely to think.

It looks like you are using a bowl type device. A control unit is attached under the table of the bowl, and the signal is sent to the electrode. When you drink juice you have to touch the tongue to the electrode, so it seems that you will feel bad manners a little if you think about Japan's dietary manners standards. By the way, it is Dr. Ranashinha himself that is the model of this picture.

Dr. Rana Singha is a person who has conducted research to make the taste felt in a pseudo manner by stimulating human taste buds. In the research seems to be able to reproduce "bitterness" and "sourness" "salty taste" efficiently, but it was difficult to reproduce the two, "sweetness" and "umami" also called the fifth taste is.

Dr. Ranashinja says that the difficulty with these devices is "to bring the electrode into contact with the tongue." Imagine trying to eat things with chopsticks actually, you can feel it, but when you bring food to your mouth, chopsticks rarely touch the tongue actually. So Dr. Ranasinha chose "mashed potatoes" as the food to use for the experiment. Unlike foods such as rice and vegetables, foods like mashed potatoes adhere to chopsticks, so people try to wipe the residue with lips and tongue. By utilizing this movement, we tried to make the electrode contact the tongue successfully.

In actual experiments using mashed potatoes, we prepared mashed potatoes with salted and salted mashed potatoes and tried them to eat. Then it seems that even mashed potatoes containing no salt could be eaten while feeling salt and acidity by giving an electric signal to the tongue.

Although this device may revolutionize the taste world, in fact, research is stopped because Dr. Ranashinha left National University of Singapore and transferred to Multisensory Interactive Media Lab at Maine University in the USA. According to Dr. Ranashinha, the current technology is still in its first stage, and there is still room for evolution. Dr. Ranashinha said that compared to the evolution of television, "This is a situation very similar to that of the 1950s television." Although the stage is still like a coarse black-and-white image now, as further research progresses, the black-and-white image becomes vivid like a color image, and as the television has evolved to image quality such as Hi-Vision and 4K, Virtual taste "also seems to increase the realism.