Taste the rainbow?

Let’s talk about taste for a minute.

When I first discovered that I couldn’t smell, it wasn’t the actual lack of smell that trigger the realization. It was the change in taste. I had no idea how intricately tied smell and taste were until now. I’ve only really talked so far about smell and nature, but we’ll get more into how my life has changed and continues to change by not smelling some other time. Right now let’s talk about food.

I’m a foodie. I always have been. I love food. I am an emotional eater, a stress eater, a bored eater, basically I eat my emotions. The fact that I am not a whale is a miracle. I just love the comfort from food. One of the things I have struggled with the most is the fact hat now I can’t taste in the same way.

I’ve begun experimenting with different foods to see if anything will stick, and here are some of my realizations.

Salt: As salty is one of the main tastes for the taste buds, I can taste it. Meaning I can taste if something is salty. Potato chips, French fries, pickles, ketchup, I can taste those. But not all the way. I can taste that they are salty, and that is it. They have no flavor other than salty.

Sweet: Again, there are specific receptors for sweet, so I can generally tell if something is sweet or not. But I can’t tell you what it is. Through experimenting, I can tell you that I can taste the rich sweetness of chocolate, but it doesn’t taste like chocolate anymore. It tastes like sweet. There has to be something else in there for me to get anything else.

Meat: For some reason, meat is an interesting time. Not sure what it means, but meat tastes….meaty. But it depends on the meat. Chicken doesn’t really taste like anything unless it’s been flavored somehow, so that’s roughly the same, depending on the chicken flavoring. But I had Salisbury steak the other day, and it tasted meaty. But not like meaty normally tastes. It’s really weird and I know that I am doing a terrible job of describing it, but that’s all I got.

Citrus: I can taste that citrus is acidic, and sometimes if it is sweet, like pineapple, but it doesn’t taste like much else. Orange juice has a hint of citrus, but it’s not very strong. Lemonade tastes like water with sweet in it. Sprite is fun because it’s got so much carbonation in it and it’s so syrupy that it almost tastes normal. Almost.

Spicy: Thanks to other receptors in the mouth, I can tell if something is spicy. Usually. But that’s all I get. It’s spicy.

Here are some very specific experiences with food for you:

- Reese’s peanut butter cups are my new favorite candy because there is so much flavor in them. But straight peanut butter I can’t really get. Weird.

- PBJ sandwiches. Not a fan anymore, which is tragic, because I was the biggest PBJ kid ever. But the texture is weird when there is no taste involved, so I can’t finish it.

- Potato salad. It’s weird, but two weeks ago I was eating potato salad and there was something about it that I could almost taste so I asked a coach what it tasted like. She thought it was dill. Go figure.

- Dirty rice. So many flavors, so spicy, I can taste it. Sort of. I can taste that it’s spicy, but not what’s in it.

- Brownies. This is so sad, since I’m a brownie girl, but all of the brownies I Have had since then have tasted like really thick, cake-like pancakes.

- Cheesecake. Plain cheesecake doesn’t really have much flavor to it, it’s all a texture thing. Surprisingly, it almost tastes normal. Sort of. I haven’t explored that one too much, but it was a very pleasant surprise that the texture of the cheesecake combined with the sweetness of cheesecake in general was almost like having cheesecake in the days of yore. I wonder if white chocolate raspberry cheesecake tastes different…

- Cranberry juice. I don’t know if you are a fan of this beverage or not, but I am sometimes. I already tried cran-apple, and that tasted like a sweet-ish syrupy thing. But straight cranberry juice? Still get that massive bite of tart at the end. But no real flavor. Still, nice to know that some things haven’t changed.

- Hot chocolate. Oh, this is agony to admit. I am a hot chocolate fiend. Addicted. Compulsive buyer and collector and drinker. But it doesn’t taste the same. I still drink it out of habit and because the warm beverage is comforting, but it tastes like warm thick nothing. I can tell if it’s creamy or watery, but that’s a texture thing.

So basically, I get textures and some strong bursts of flavor, but I can’t tell you what it tastes like. I can tell you it tastes different from something else, sometimes, but not what it is. Scrambled eggs are very boring, but if you put green peppers in them and put ketchup on top (sounds gross, I know) it almost tastes like something. Texture and salt. Variety and flavor. That is what I live for these days.

I’m still trying things, so I’m sure more will come to me. I really like crunchy things right now, for some reason, and carbonation. Maybe it’s a memory thing. Let me know if you have suggestions to try or questions. I’m open to just about everything. Oh, and mushrooms are still gross even if you can’t taste them. They’re slimy and it’s gross and wrong. Plus it’s a fungus, so there’s that.

High: Tasting the cheesecake was pretty awesome, not gonna lie. I almost cried. But that would have ruined it.

Low: Chomping on a chocolate covered espresso bean and not knowing it until someone told me. Yeahhhhh, didn’t see or taste that one coming. Blegh. Even the texture was gross. Like chewing on rocks.

High: Chicken parmesan at dinner. I can taste the acidity of the marina sauce and the breaded chicken tasted like breaded something meaty, so it was actually pretty enjoyable.

My main problem is my appetite. When you can’t taste things, you don’t get hungry as much so your caloric intake goes way down. You just don’t WANT to eat. And forcing yourself to eat just makes you sick. So I eat small portions of lots of things to get that variety and get enough in before I’m bored with it, and I do some meal replacement shakes when I need to, for calories and nutrients.

And chocolate. That always helps.