The weirdest thing has happened..

[Shelli]

I'm going through the "Change of Life Taste" :pucker:

Seemingly just within the past month, I've gone from a salt fanatic :popcorn: to being utterly repulsed by anything more than a slight sprinkling of it. :bleh:

Same goes with honey. :bee: I'm finding myself using less and less honey in my tea because the sweetness of the usual amount that I've always used is grossing me out. :verysick:

I figure that this change in my taste buds might have been brought on by the fact that I quit smoking over a half a year ago, however, even that doesn't make sense in light of the fact that I've quit smoking for even longer than that in the past and this has never happened. :wha:

Has anyone ever had this happen? :eh?:

[Veritas]

I have.

I used to take sugar in my tea but overnight went completely off it. Someone made me a cup, and I nearly spat it out, and asked, "Have you put two sugars in this?" I then asked for a cup with half a sugar, still too sweet; couldn't drink it. Turns out overnight my tastes had changed.

Only with tea, though. I still like sweet things like doughnuts and confectionary. :penguinglomp:

I've never smoked, though, so that can't be used to explain my overnight change. Strange, but you're not the only one it happened to.

[Ymir's blood]

Obviously, you are turning into a zombie. As everyone knows, salt is a traditional means of destroying voodoo created zombies. Also you'll want to avoid meat and facing the ocean.

[curses]

:zombieglomp:

It hasn't happened to me yet, but I've only quit smoking for a couple of weeks :shiftier:

[Shelli]

:rughide:

[quiet bear]

Maybe you've just had enough salt. Got your belly full, and don't want any more.

I had my last bowl of oatmeal when I was 8. That was plenty enough for me.

Plus, you have had a devil of a time putting on the weight you wanted, so I don't know if that might have something to do with your balance, you know?

[Godwhacker]

I used to notice that my tastes would sometimes change after I got sick (i.e. stomach sick w/nausea and vomiting). Not always, but sometimes.

[The Lone Ranger]

Roughly speaking, there are six different kinds of taste buds. One group of taste buds responds to water. Though most people aren't consciously aware of their activity, they play an important role in letting us know whether or not we're properly hydrated.

Another type of taste bud creates the taste sensation called umami (from the Japanese word meaning "savory" or "meaty"). These receptors respond especially strongly to glutamates, which are common in meats, cheeses, and other protein-rich foods.

"Salt" receptors respond especially strongly to dissolved ions, which is why foods containing sodium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, or other such substances taste "salty." In most Western societies, we get more than enough salt in our diets, so it's perhaps surprising to most of us to realize that an adequate amount of salt in the diet is absolutely essential to good health. This is doubtless why people who do have too little salt in their diets will develop a craving for it. In olden times, salt was such a widely-sought commodity that Roman soldiers were partly paid in salt. (It's claimed that this is the origin of the word "soldier," which supposedly comes from "sal dare," meaning to "give salt." It's also the reputed origin of the phrase "worth his salt," meaning someone who was worthy of being paid for his services.")

"Sweet" receptors respond to especially strongly to small carbohydrate molecules -- what we call sugars. Carbohydrates are a good source of energy. Again, given how easily accessible refined sugar is nowadays, it's easy for us to forget that our ancestors did not have access to it. Since sweet items are such good sources of energy, this doubtless explains why people tend to like the taste of sweets so much.

"Sour" receptors respond most strongly to acids. Many fruits, when they're unripe, contain acids that break down into sugars as the fruit sweetens. In addition, many foods, as they begin to decay become acidic (bacteria produce acidic byproducts as they digest the food). So, the ability to taste acids is important because it's a reasonably good indicator of the quality of the food. This probably helps explain why most people don't care for sour foods overmuch. (Though the taste can certainly be acquired.)

"Bitter" receptors respond especially strongly to chemicals called alkaloids. These are produced by many plants as "protective chemicals," and many are deadly poisonous in even very small quantities. Some examples include nicotine, quinine, and strychnine. Obviously, an ability to taste alkaloids is an evolutionary advantage, and the fact that alkaloids tend to be so deadly probably explains why most people find bitter-tasting substances repulsive. [Though again, some people have actually learned to like (somewhat) bitter-tasting foods, of course.]




How a thing tastes to you is a result of how it triggers the sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami receptors -- and how it triggers the chemoreceptors in the nose. A great deal of what you taste is actually what you're smelling.


A couple of years ago, after a nasty case of strep throat, I was put on antibiotics. One of the side effects was that they affected my sense of taste in a most unusual way. For some reason, I lost the ability to taste sweetness, but nothing else. It was awful. Fruits tasted awful, because I could only taste the sour acids in them. Most other foods tasted bitter to me. I wound up losing several pounds of weight because for 2 weeks I could barely force myself to drink anything other than water or eat anything other than the most tasteless things I could find. I subsisted almost entirely on water and white rice.


Cheers,

Michael

[Dragar]

Here's something I learned when writing a short paper for one of my classes.

Did anyone else ever read about the taste bud diagram for the tongue? You know, the one that looks like this:

http://library.thinkquest.org/3750/images/tastebud.gif

It turned out - to my surprise - that the map is in fact pretty much completely bogus (http://www.sinauer.com/wolfe/chap14/bogustongueF.htm)! Well, not completely - but the differerences in the sensitivity of the regions is so small as to be negligiable.

It really took me by surprise. I'm sure it's first-year stuff for anyone studying the topic, but us physicists don't get much into the realms of sensation.

[livius drusus]

My mom got hepatitis from some poorly cooked mussels once. After she recovered (she was down for the count for at least a month) she found she could no longer stand the taste of red wine or hard liquor.

Taste buds move in mysterious ways.

[Shelli]

huh, weirdness. :stwitch:

[JoeP]

In most Western societies, we get more than enough salt in our diets, so it's perhaps surprising to most of us to realize that an adequate amount of salt in the diet is absolutely essential to good health. This is doubtless why people who do have too little salt in their diets will develop a craving for it. In olden times, salt was such a widely-sought commodity that Roman soldiers were partly paid in salt. (It's claimed that this is the origin of the word "soldier," which supposedly comes from "sal dare," meaning to "give salt." It's also the reputed origin of the phrase "worth his salt," meaning someone who was worthy of being paid for his services.")
And salary, from salarium, money given to soldiers to buy salt, according to my sources (Collins English Dictionary and a bunch of web dictionaries.

You say 'claimed' and 'supposedly' - do you doubt this etymology?

[Watser?]

And salary, from salarium, money given to soldiers to buy salt, according to my sources (Collins English Dictionary and a bunch of web dictionaries.

I always heard they got part of their wages in the form of salt.

[The Lone Ranger]

And salary, from salarium, money given to soldiers to buy salt, according to my sources (Collins English Dictionary and a bunch of web dictionaries.

You say 'claimed' and 'supposedly' - do you doubt this etymology?

Not especially. I remembered reading this some time ago, but I didn't bother to go to the trouble of looking up the etymologies of the word and phrase to confirm their origins when making the post. Call it laziness on my part.

Cheers,

Michael

[JoeP]

I want to be shocked that you didn't go and research it - but I have a feeling you don't research any of your detailed posts, you just know all of this stuff, ready at your fingertips (except this detail). :D

[The Lone Ranger]

Well, in all honesty, I usually write off the top of my head. That's why I'm usually very careful to add disclaimers and why I try to avoid saying "it's known that ..." or some such thing unless I'm danged sure of my facts.

Naturally, I'm careful to look up anything I'm not certain about before putting it to paper if I'm using that "fact" as a component of an argument. It would be unethical to do otherwise.

Cheers,

Michael