Mr. Lehmkuhl's GATE Class: Hacking the Tongue

🍬 Module 1: The Bliss Point Blueprint

**🔍 Detective eye:** Salt, sugar, and fat, all on one table. Can you find a food for each one?

🎚️ The Bliss Point Lab

You're the flavor scientist now! Move the three sliders to find the “bliss point.” Be careful: if any one goes too high or too low, your score drops.

Cartoon of a smiling scientist pointing at a big game machine called Bliss Point. Each slider has a sad face at both ends and a glowing green target in the middle. The score meter is high and green. — **🎯 Aim for the middle!** Too little or too much makes a sad face. Just right makes your score climb. Your lab uses sugar, salt, and fat.

🍭 Sugar15

🧂 Salt85

🧈 Fat20

👅 Module 2: The Five-Sense Trap

**🔍 Detective eye:** Count the red things in this photo. Why might a restaurant choose so much red?

🔊 The Sonic Crunch Lab

This copies Charles Spence's real 2004 experiment. Change how loud and how high the “crunch” sounds. Then take a bite and see how fresh the chip seems.

🔉 How Loud50

🎵 How High (pitch)50

Move the sliders, then tap “Take a Bite” to hear your crunch and see how fresh it seems.

**🔊 Listen up:** A taco shell, a chip, a fry. The crunch you hear is part of the flavor your brain tastes.

💼 Module 3: Company Goals vs. Your Health

**🔍 Detective eye:** A burger, fries, and a soda sold together as one meal. Who earns more when you buy the whole combo?

🕵️ The Ingredient Detective Agency

Pick a popular food to investigate. For each ingredient, find out WHY it's really there.

**🕵️ Today's suspects:** Each of these foods was taste-tested again and again to make you want more.

⚖️ You Be the Regulator

Parents and doctors worry that food companies use these tricks on kids. A regulator is a person who makes rules for companies. You're the regulator! What do you do?

Cartoon of a regulator standing in the middle of a room with a big balance scale. Health and choice are on one side. New ideas and company growth are on the other. Parents and doctors watch from the left. Food company workers watch from the right. A board above shows five possible rules, each marked with a check or an X. — **🔍 Detective eye:** This regulator has to balance health and choice against new ideas and growth. She already marked her rules with checks and an X. Would you mark them the same way? Who is watching her decide?

🧠 Knowledge Check

✅ 0/15

🔒 The Order Window is locked

Finish every task below to open the Bliss Point Drive-Thru.

👅 Hacking the Tongue