M&M's all taste the same

This morning, an article on the National Public Radio site caused quite a panic in my head. Hello OCD, nice to hear from you again. It was about the following. The article, which has stirred quite a bit of dust among my fellow OCD-ers, explains that M&M's and Skittles, and actually the entire range of rainbow-colored candies in a bag, all have the same taste. Our brains simply trick us into thinking they taste different because we associate colors with certain flavors.

Say whut? Yes girlfriend, that's a bit shocking, huh. There goes your tic of laying color on color and the illusion that the yellow and orange ones at the bottom of the bag are left behind because they simply aren't as tasty as green and red.

Thank goodness, you're not alone. You've probably thought all this time, just like me, that yellow belongs to lemon, orange tastes like orange, and red tastes like cherries or strawberries. One big mindfuck. Because even if certain food products don't taste like this at all, our brains still have that association. And the same goes for the good old M&M's and Skittles.

The phenomenon even has a name: ‘color dominated taste’, which was discovered by an English professor. He discovered, for example, that color can make a drink taste sweeter without adding an extra scoop of sugar. And this is being exploited. Soft drink brands are making their drinks lighter in color because we associate that with ‘healthy’.

I think I still need to process this. Anyone want a yellow or an orange?