Why You Should Try Holding Your Nose While Eating Chocolate

We love a good game of truth or dare. Do you remember when you were kid and your bestie would dare you to text a friend using only your nose or cajole you into eating a whole hot chile pepper without water or milk nearby? The thought makes our mouths burn just thinking about it. But when the game involves chocolate, we are all in. Chocolate is like fairy dust: It is simply magical. 

Per Forbes, the average American ate about 9.5 pounds in 2015 while people in Switzerland consumed an average of nearly 20 pounds. And there were plenty of other countries who beat out the U.S. with their per person stats, including Germany, which clocked an average of 17.4 pounds per person and the United Kingdom, whose citizens each reportedly consumed an average of 16.3 pounds.

Chocolate is the universal love language. It can calm the savage toddler, sooth the brokenhearted, be made into a survival bar during wartimes (via Hershey Archives), and be enjoyed for no reason at all other than we like it. But we have a dare that involves holding your nose that will make your chocolate experience even more enjoyable, so break out a chocolate bar because you will want to try this. 

When you were a child, you might recall having to take bitter medicine when you were sick and your mom told you to hold your nose so you wouldn't taste it. Of course, doing so was to prevent you from throwing up the medicine, but this concept can also be applied to the enjoyment of chocolate. According to The Kitchn, if you give your nose a little squeeze and hold it for 2 to 3 seconds as your favorite chocolate rests on your tongue and begins to melt in your mouth, when you release your nose, you will discover you have a heightened sense of what the chocolate tastes like. In fact you may even detect subtle notes of other flavors in your chocolate. Mind blown. But why does this trick work? 

Scientific American explains that "taste" is actually the intersection of taste, smell, and touch colliding together to give our brains the sweet, sour, savory, and every other taste in between experience. Smell is such an integral part of the process that when you hold your nose, you are actually inhibiting the taste; However, once you release your nose, it allows the fragrance of the chocolate to permeate your nostrils and you can suddenly taste its creamy flavor. Don't believe us? Then try it for yourself. We dare you.