By Sherry Hess, The Flavor Remedy
When I was invited to contribute to this issue of The Organic & Non-GMO Report, the theme—Biology in Motion—felt like a natural alignment with my work. Because that is exactly what food is meant to be: biology, alive and dynamic. And, in whole foods, flavor is the biological translator.
Human biology is designed to receive nourishment through a sensory journey—one that begins on the tongue, engages the brain, and continues throughout the body. Flavor is not meant to be a passive organoleptic experience. In food that is grown and raised, it is an active biological signal, guiding us toward—or away from—what we eat.
I often say that flavor is nature’s language. It tells us how a plant or animal lived: whether it was stressed, resilient, hydrated, or deprived. These conditions express themselves through flavorful compounds that we taste. What we perceive as sweetness, bitterness, minerality, and savoriness are not random—they are information. Signals of nutritional reality.
While we often reduce this to taste alone, it is truly a full sensory system—aroma, texture, visual cues and even sound—all contributing to how we discern nourishment.
We often hear farmers who are committed to soil health say, “It tastes better.” And they’re right.
But that statement alone is no longer enough.
Modern consumers are navigating a food landscape filled with variables—many engineered. Flavor technologies, additives, and “natural flavors” have reshaped expectations and, in many cases, dulled our ability to interpret what flavor is actually telling us.
Many stakeholders in the food system are hesitant to approach the topic of flavor and taste due to the obvious challenge: taste is subjective. What tastes good to one person may not to another.
However, this subjectivity is not occurring in a vacuum.
For decades, producers have been incentivized to prioritize yield, shelf life, and uniformity over flavor and nutrient density. As a result, those qualities have diminished. Many younger consumers have never experienced the true flavor of a strawberry grown in living soil or a properly pasture-raised chicken. They lack a flavor reference point.
This isn’t new information for this audience.
What may be new is that science is beginning to validate what farmers and eaters have long sensed: our bodies respond differently to real flavor.
Historically, research around taste has focused heavily on palatability driven by processed food demands and funding. Our innate draw to energetic sweetness has been a primary focus, resulting in decades of dietary trends: low-fat, high-sugar products, followed by modern ongoing search for non-nutritive sweeteners that replicate that same appeal.
But we are beginning to see a shift.
As the use of GLP-1 agonist drugs to regulate appetite rises, emerging research is also exploring how flavor complexity in whole foods interacts with our biology. Naturally occurring combinations of sweet compounds (which provide energy) and bitter or polyphenolic compounds (which support glucose regulation) appear to work together to stimulate satiety hormones—including GLP-1—within the body.
In other words, nature already built the system we are trying to replicate.
This is where biology in motion becomes tangible.
Taste does far more than determine preference. It initiates a cascade of biological responses. Compounds detected on the tongue send signals not only to the brain, but throughout the body. Taste receptors exist in the gut, pancreas, and beyond.
We are not just tasting flavor—we are processing information.
As nutrients and phytochemicals move through the body, they continue this dialogue, influencing hormone production, metabolism, and satiety. Flavor, in this sense, is not static. It is experienced in motion—just like the biology it reflects.
And this is where growing conditions matter profoundly.
The complexity of flavor—the layers of sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami—comes from the complexity of the environment in which food is grown or raised. Living soils, biodiversity, proper hydration, and ecological balance all contribute to the compounds that create both flavor and nutrition.
When those systems are simplified or degraded, flavor simplifies as well. And when flavor diminishes, we often attempt to replace it—not by restoring biology, but through chemistry.
To the producers who feel like they are shouting into the void—“But it tastes better!”—keep going.
What you are producing is not just better-tasting food. You are producing biological intelligence.
But as an industry, we need to evolve how we communicate that value.
The separation of flavor from nutrition—driven by a focus on palatability alone—has led to widespread confusion. Many consumers now equate “tastes good” with “unhealthy,” because their primary reference point is processed food.
In reality, the opposite is often true in whole, properly grown foods.
This is the gap—and the opportunity.
As laboratory tools improve and give us more precise measurements of nutrient density, we have an opening to reconnect that data to sensory experience. Taste can serve as a bridge—an immediate, accessible way for consumers to begin understanding the value of nutrient-dense food.
Not as a replacement for science, but as a complement to it.
Because ultimately, if we want to expand demand for nutrient-dense, non-toxic regeneratively grown food, we must restore trust in the body’s ability to recognize it.
Flavor is not a luxury. It is a guide.
And when we begin to understand it as such, we don’t just change how we eat. We change how we grow.
Advertisements
