Table 1.

Taste quality responses to various amounts of stearic acid and linoleic acid.

Stearic Acid, umoles	Sweet	Sour	Salty	Bitter	No Discernible Taste	Other
0.0	0	0	1	7	80	11 [46]
1.1	0	2	0	7	31	60 [48]
1.3	0	5	0	5	21	69 [79]
1.5	0	5	0	12	14	69 [48]
1.7	0	0	0	31	41	29 [67]
Linoleic Acid, umoles	Sweet	Sour	Salty	Bitter	No Discernible Taste	Other
0.0	3	1	3	5	81	7 [71]
1.1	2	2	9	13	34	40 [47]
1.3	0	0	9	23	23	45 [45]
1.5	2	9	9	17	21	43 [49]
1.7	0	4	6	28	19	43 [42]

All taste quality responses were normalized to 100%. “Other” taste represents a response that is not perceived as sweet, sour, salty, or bitter. Subjects who responded “other” were further asked to use a word description to identify the taste quality of fatty acid taste strips. Data in parenthesis in column seven represent the percentage of “other” tasters who gave a taste quality response of fatty/oily/waxy/sunflower seed taste. Data for stearic acid is from 30 subjects, and includes one light smoker (<10 cigarettes per day). Data for linoleic acid is from the 52 non-smoking subjects.