Inferior Taste Buds?

[InferiorTaste]

I've been thinking this for a while. I pretty much eat anything. I don't have any issues with textures or tastes. Strong and weak tastes don't bother me. I can taste the difference between say cornflakes but I don't care that the cheaper ones aren't as nice as the Kellogg's version. It doesn't ruin my breakfast eating cheap flakes.

So are my taste buds just inferior? Are they not sophisticated enough to pick up different flavours etc which other people do rendering some foods inedible for them.

I know a lot of people can't abide the taste of coriander or lemongrass. To me both delicious.

Veggies, why do people struggle to eat them. I just don't think they are an offensive taste.

I find it fascinating how some people really struggle with flavours and textures and wonder why I don't.

I feel the same. It's hard to get excited by food although I do like some things, I could generally eat anything. I also have a feeling that fussy eaters are attentions seeking.

I absolutely think there is a scale of how strong people’s sense of taste is. Some people have stronger or weaker hearing or sight or smell, why not taste?

And yes, perhaps people to whom food is just fuel have a weaker sense of taste. Perhaps people who are very “fussy” and don’t like a lot of foods have a stronger sense of taste. (Or indeed people who become very foodie and seek out gourmet delicacies.)

@BringItOnxxx I have several food aversions, it is definitely not attention seeking. There are things I literally cannot and will not eat. Maybe there are things that you struggle with that I don't, does that make you attention seeking?

@InferiorTaste my issues are ASD related. When I met DH he hated vegetables. Turned out he didn't at all, he just hated the way his mum boiled everything for 30 mins and vegetables were all mush. I think things like that put people off.

@idontlikealdi funnily enough my son has ASD and will not eat own brand Cheerios but will devour the Nestlé ones. My husband, who is NT, will only really eat branded crunchy nut cornflakes because the cheap ones aren't as nice. The price difference is eye watering and I find it perplexing how there can be such a difference. But following how my son eats I understand there must be. I have encountered these preferences before just never given it as much thought as I do now.

Arguably superior tastebuds if they can tell good food from food that's gone off and otherwise let you eat anything! They sound perfect in evolutionary terms.

Yes tastes are perceived differently by different people. Sprouts and asparagus are famous ones that some people can taste/smell a note that others can't. There's also the super taster thing. We went to a science thing once where we had to put paper on our tongue and depending on whether it tasted of nothing, mild or disgusting they grouped you as low taster, medium or super taster. DH and I were both medium but we still experience food in completely different ways though. I can taste food and say it needs more salt or whatever, DH has literally no clue. I cook by taste, he follows recipes exactly.

I'd be fascinated to know how much of this is just genetic - receptors you have the genes to make or you don't - and how much is developed through a lifetime of tasting. Similarly there are sounds that speakers of some languages can perceive a difference between, and others can't. Your mother tongue affects what sounds you can distinguish. So does experiencing a wide variety of different foods, or a particular group of them over others, affect your discernment?

I can't stand most herbs and spices as a lot have an undertaste or after taste of rotting compost. Absolutely vile. But my DH and children think they add extra layers of taste and make dishes better. They think I'm being fussy and only liking bland food, but I can taste the "bland" food so it's not actually bland. I can taste the difference in carrots or potatoes or tomatoes or apples, they can't.

I'm a fussy eater and it's the total opposite of attention seeking. I try to avoid eating in front of people as much as possible in case they "discover" that there are certain things I won't touch. It's an embarrassment to me, but I can't change it.

Also I think what @idontlikealdi says has a lot of bearing, what you grow up eating (and liking/disliking) will tend to stick with you.

There are some things that I didn't eat as a child which I will now eat and enjoy but others that I cannot countenance - mushrooms is one of them. Any type of mushroom, in any dish.

@zenpig same. I actively avoid working in eg work situations / events. If I can't avoid it I declare vegetarian in the dietary requirements (always declare, don't steal the vegetarian food!), it's safer for me. Easier to say vegetarian than I complete PITA over food!

I'm the same! I just can't imagine disliking something to the extent that I wouldn't eat it. To me basically all food tastes fine.

@glusky that's really interesting. Had the paper been treated at all?

Also I wonder as a late 80s/90s child my parents were relatively adventurous and we had a lot of variety as kids. It's something I'd not thought about much but I think it might have a bearing as an adult. However, my sister was raised the same way and will not eat cauliflower as she doesn't like it. I don't really care for it either way. I eat it as it is good for me, cheap and easy to have in the freezer.

@zenpig it's a shame you feel that embarrassed. Is it a taste issue or texture or both? Out of interest can you taste if mushrooms are in something or could you "eat round" them?

@zenpig the mushroom thing is just very sensible. They should not be tolerated.

I struggle with textures. Anything that involves popping a skin (grapes, tomatoes) I find disgusting

@InferiorTaste it's both with most things. For example I can't stand "soft" textured or tasting apples like Red Delicious, because they "should" be crunchy and tangy in my mind so I stick with Granny Smiths.

I could possibly eat around mushrooms if they were just an accompaniment, but if they've been cooked into something I can absolutely tell and it will put me off. I am a very big fan of restaurants that publish their menu online so I can check them out beforehand!

Foody attention seekers do exist for sure, usually like my ex MIL and her (totally made up) allergies, harassing restaurant staff to absolutely make sure her food hadn't been near any of her "allergens", then eating something that contains several of them the next day, because "I know I can trust these ones" 🙄

Maybe I've just been unlucky but the adult fussy eaters ive known have been incredibly vocal and made everyone dance around them. Like finding things disgusting was part of their personality or made them more refined than people who just ate what was served to them. Whereas I was talk not to waste food, we were just grateful for getting anything tbh.

I have quite sensitive taste buds in that I can eat something someone else has cooked and identify most of the ingredients even small amounts of particular herbs and spices. I worked in kitchens a lot when I was young and learned to cook by tasting , sight, touch, technique rather than recipe books etc.

I'm not a fussy eater at all though, the only things I don't eat by choice are bananas and baked beans, it's textural slimy, squishy, slightly firm and sweet. I can eat them though and if for example someone put baked beans on my dinner, I wouldn't eat them but I would eat any food 'contaminated' with bean juice.

I also have a very sensitive sense of smell (something DS also has) we can often smell things DH can't, I wonder sometimes if the two things are linked as so much of taste is smell

@InferiorTaste oh yes the paper had a chemical infused on it, they described it as similar to the bitter note in sprouts.

@BringItOnxxx I imagine there's a confirmation bias going on there. You're overwhelming more likely to notice someone being performative than someone trying to hide it.

Texture's definitely an issue for some, and that is more obviously down to personal experiences, but there is also taste variation. My son (autistic, so maybe a special case but still) does not experience olives or anchovies as particularly strong tastes. I find that hard to get my head round!

My dc and I are hugely sensitive to most things (dx spd) and textures and tastes can ruin meals and I am sure many think of us as ‘fussy’. We would both love not to be though and avoid eating situations rather than make a fuss.

I would love to like a range of tastes! Or at least, not be so bothered by them. Not liking potatoes is the most annoying.

Yes it is absolutely possible!
Just as some people have very sensitive taste buds, yours are less so. Maybe you have fewer, or maybe it's genetic that you don't process the flavours.

It is possible to train your tastebuds to be more sensitive.

I have done that paper test as part of a biology practical when I was at University. I can taste the tiniest amount of the bitter substance - Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC).. Most of the class couldn't.

I'm a very fussy eater and always have been - and not to attention-seek. There are foods I just won't eat at all - I won't eat buttered bread for example, the sliminess makes me feel physically sick. My DP on the other hand eats most everything and likes flavours I couldn't abide, like strong spices, chillies and so on. Some things are genetic, like the taste of Coriander and cucumber. I hate the former and love the latter. DP loves Coriander but doesn't taste the lovely mild cucumber flavour. When I was younger I always dreaded going out for a meal somewhere or eating at someone's house because of feeling I would be served something I couldn't eat.

My taste has changed over the years though. For example I never liked olives until my 30s. Wouldn't eat beetroot but now like it. Went off most fatty foods over the years. Then Covid and that just added to the mess!

I agree about the popping of tomatoes and too seedy and wet.
I dont mind peppers after disliking as a child but seems im intolerant as awful gas.

My kids are spd.

And i dont like uncooked cheese
Dc2 doesnt like pancakes or apple pie!

Some of it is genetic. Apparently there's a gene responsible for taste of coriander. I've got the mutation so anything with coriander in it tastes awful & like soap. Someone without the mutation tastes a nice savoury herb.
Theres probably more genetics involved in other tastes.

I can taste the difference in carrots or potatoes or tomatoes or apples, they can't
Really @AutumnFroglets ? That’s very odd. Those things taste very different to just about everybody, surely? I think it’s unusual to think spices taste of rotting vegetation though - the whole art/science of cookery is based on them adding depth and subtleties of taste.

That's interesting about coriander @Serencwtch . Do you know if that applies to both the leaf and the seed?

I have a complicated relationship with coriander 😁.

No @cardibach , it is very weird but they can't taste the difference between a maris piper or a King Edward for instance. It's just "potato" flavour to them. Same with gala or red golden delicious is just "apple". I cannot eat an apple turnover if it has cinnamon in it for example as it makes it taste as though it is past the use by date, it's "off" even if made that day.