Vegetables could taste like candy one day with this simple device

Many people don’t eat vegetables because of their taste. But smothering them with cheese or sauces basically undoes all their nutritional benefit.

British scientists have another solution. A team led by University of London professor Adrian Cheok has developed a device called the Taste Buddy makes foods seem sweeter, according to The Telegraph. “I wanted to make a device that could allow children to eat vegetables that taste like chocolate,” he tells the paper. Truly, this is the dream, and not just for the under-10 crowd.

The Taste Buddy uses electrical stimulation to warm the tongue — turns out all it takes to trick your tastebuds into thinking they’re on a tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory is raising their temperature by about 30 degrees. So far the device has only been used to enhance the flavor of low-sugar foods, but even cutting down on the use of sweeteners would have huge health implications.

Cheok and his colleagues aren’t just working on candy-coating the food world; they’re also looking at other flavor swaps like making vegetable products taste like steak — though you can taste that bit of our Jetsons-style future today.