Want Your Glass Of Water To Taste Sweeter? Cook Up An Artichoke

We all know we should be drinking more water. Remembering to keep hydrated can have significant health benefits, according to the National Council on Aging: from improved digestion to better brain function to simply giving you more energy to get through your busy day. As a result, many have resorted to chugging water from gallon-sized motivational water bottles, creating reminder alerts on their phones, and even gotten H₂O-themed tattoos in hopes of remembering to boost their water intake. But for some, it's less about forgetting to drink water and more about the bland taste that keeps them from hitting their hydration goals.

Squirting flavor enhancers, like Mio, into your water glass or simply enjoying flavored seltzer waters are easy ways to make drinking water more enticing. However, if you're looking for a completely natural way to enjoy water just a little bit more, you might want to start putting artichokes onto your grocery list.

The artichoke trick

If you have a hard time drinking bland-tasting water but you're not a fan of adding flavorings into your beverage, you might want to think about pairing an artichoke with your next water-filled glass. Simply eating an artichoke before sipping some water will actually alter the drink's taste in your mouth. It's likely this pairing will trick your tongue into thinking the water has a sweet taste, making it easy to enjoy for even the pickiest of drinkers.

The science behind this says that a certain chemical in the artichoke, cynarin, clings to the area of your tongue that has lots of sweet receptors, according to research published in Science. However, the reason the artichoke itself doesn't taste sweet while you're eating one alone is that the cynarin adheres to the receptors without actually turning them on. Once you decide to wash down the vegetable with plenty of water, the liquid quickly removes the cynarin from this area, misleading you into tasting a sweet flavor.

So, if deceiving your own tongue's taste buds wasn't on the list of ways you planned on drinking more water, we recommend you try out this method. After all, who doesn't want to enjoy sugary-tasting water without any extra effort? Well, besides cooking up an entire artichoke that is.