[Suppafly]

Sure, and I also doubt people's ability to tell the difference in a blind taste comparison. People claiming to do so visually see the anti-caking agent, they don't taste it. It doesn't taste grainy. You can taste a bit of corn starch or cellulose directly and tell that it doesn't taste 'grainy' or even have much of a flavor at all.

[kube-system]

The point of the anti-caking agent is to prevent the cheese from sticking to itself, which inherently affects the texture of the cheese in your mouth... it doesn't stick to itself the same way freshly shredded cheese does, particularly if the cheese is soft and sticky like processed american cheeses. Although it is likely less noticeable for dryer and harder cheeses.

[Suppafly]

>The point of the anti-caking agent is to prevent the cheese from sticking to itself, which inherently affects the texture of the cheese in your mouth

It does so by keeping the cheese 'dryer' than it normally would be. Putting it in your mouth basically undoes that. You're only going to notice if you're eating it by the handful, not when you're using it in actual food dishes.

[josephg]

You seem very certain that you know how my mouth works. I promise you, you don’t.

I’m a super taster. I did a test when I was 20. You take a macro photo of your tongue and count the taste buds in a 1cm square spot. From what I read at the time, the average person has 25 taste buds per sq cm. I have 40. Some people have as few as 10. Imagine how different food must taste to all of us!

And flavours don’t just “scale up”. Some flavours are way too strong for me - like, spinach is super strong. If spinach is on pizza, all I taste is spinach. I can’t taste anything else and I may as well be eating a salad. I can’t eat dark chocolate - it tastes like a punch in the mouth with wood ash. And I’ve never been able to drink coffee.

One of my all time favorite meals is plain pasta with butter and grated Parmesan. So simple. So yummy. But pre shredded cheese doesn’t melt the same way on pasta - and the difference is obvious to my mouth. Shredded Parmesan cheese has a much weaker cheese taste - even from the same brand. And the texture is all wrong.

Maybe your mouth can’t tell the difference. But don’t claim to know how my mouth works. I suspect if we could trade mouths for the day, we’d both be shocked.

[rdlw]

> It does so by keeping the cheese 'dryer' than it normally would be. Putting it in your mouth basically undoes that.

By this logic, shouldn't croutons and cubes of fresh bread be indistinguishable?

[kelnos]

> It does so by keeping the cheese 'dryer' than it normally would be. Putting it in your mouth basically undoes that.

That's not how chemistry works.