We give an equivalent description of taut submanifolds of complete Riemannian manifolds as exactly those submanifolds whose normal exponential map has the property that every preimage of a point is a union of submanifolds. It turns out that every taut submanifold is also $\mathbb{Z}_2$-taut. We explicitly construct generalized Bott-Samelson cycles for the critical points of the energy functionals on the path spaces of a taut submanifold that, generically, represent a basis for the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-cohomology. We also consider singular Riemannian foliations all of whose leaves are taut. Using our characterization of taut submanifolds, we are able to show that tautness of a singular Riemannian foliation is actually a property of the quotient.