Changing taste buds
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ellioc2
Posts: 148 Member
I’ve been pretty good about tracking my calories for 2 months and been limiting my carbs/added sugars. I’m getting a bit bored of what I’m eating tbh so I’ve switched a few things up but my calories and macros are more or less the same. I haven’t really eaten any “junk” food except for pizza once and I went heavy on the veggies and got it gluten free (it also fit into my caloric budget, I only had two slices). Well the other day I was out with some friends at an Asian fusion place and I decided what the heck, and to treat myself and order a bubble tea with lychee jelly. I used to love bubble tea, I’d have it maybe twice a month as a treat. I don’t know if it was the restaurant or my changing taste buds but it was too sweet, and not even in a good way. I did not enjoy it. I drank it all because it was $5 but I definitely regretted it. And I think most bubble teas are 400ish calories, so with my 1200 calorie budget it was a third and I had almost none left over for dinner. I guess it’s good that I’m not craving sweets/carbs as much and that my taste buds now won’t even let me enjoy it. Has this happened to anyone else? It was definitely a weird moment for me, I wanted to give myself the day off and enjoy it and I couldn’t even do that.
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No, I didn't really have a change in my tastebuds, but I ate a lot of the same kinds of foods (vegetables, lean meats, fruit, beans and lentils) that I eat now before watching my calories. I still enjoy the dessert foods and high cal savory foods that I enjoyed before (even though I may eat them rarely). Looking forward to homemade pie on Thanksgiving! I am more picky in that I don't want to waste calories on something (especially high cal) unless I really enjoy it.
Being used to foods is often necessary before you start to like them -- that's why it's important for kids to try vegetables lots of times to develop a taste for them -- and amount of salt you want/can tolerate depends on what you are used to, so if you are expanding your palate or eating much, much differently it's not uncommon for tastebuds to adjust some, I'm sure.0 -
Yep, it happened to me when I reduced added sugars. I'm a diabetic so avoiding quickly-digested processed sugar was really a necessity for me. I used to be practically addicted to Coca-Cola and now it tastes so sweet it's nasty.
On the upside, fruits, dairy products and even some vegetables such as carrots and bean sprouts taste much sweeter to me now.1 -
Absolutely! Just ate a really expensive well cooked steak but they had added loads of butter to it and practically ruined it for me. Not to mention my stomach was not very happy with all the oil.0
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I too, find a lot of sweet foods too sweet now. It is good because I don't really enjoy or crave them as a result. On the other hand, I am enjoying spicy food so much more than I ever have which means I am eating a much more varied diet than I was before.0
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Yup, I switched to drinking sparkling water, instead of full sugar pop, while I was travelling in Europe. By the time I got home I found pop just tasted like water with bubbles and way too much sugar. Couldn't taste the flavour at all.
I haven't drank it in 10yr ( wow that surprised even me), except as a mixer, and find it hard to believe how much I used to like it.
Still enjoy a good dessert though.
Cheers, h.2 -
Yes my taste buds changed. I always liked finer foods as in lower on spices and salt and that went further. Developing off flavours that I could overlook are now at the forefront and as a result many foods are just tasing off
These days I cannot stand foods that are overly sweet from added sugars They very very quickly turn bitter in my taste buds. That said I love naturally sweet vegetables and fruits For me it is about balance and to be honest nature does that better than most cooks
I don't like greasy foods anymore A doughnut or something like it just look yuk and because most people/companies do not change their frying fat often enough it tastes rancid.0 -
rheddmobile wrote: »Yep, it happened to me when I reduced added sugars. I'm a diabetic so avoiding quickly-digested processed sugar was really a necessity for me. I used to be practically addicted to Coca-Cola and now it tastes so sweet it's nasty.
On the upside, fruits, dairy products and even some vegetables such as carrots and bean sprouts taste much sweeter to me now.
I think people must vary a lot on this. I never had a problem tasting the sweetness in fruits and veg even before I worried about limiting sweet things. But I suppose I was always a bit more of a savory person and thought non diet sodas tasted sticky sweet (but I could enjoy occasional diet sodas and water and homemade non sweetened iced tea and, back in the day, dry wine (always disliked sweeter wines) and some sweets were too sweet (I've always liked desserts that are not all that sweet better). Hmm, and even as a kid I disliked the super sweet cereals aimed at kids and sweet salad dressings. But that said I could always and can still enjoy some quite sweet things, like a bowl of ice cream. Oh, and I've always loved bitter and spicy.0 -
I guess, because I find having some apple and cheese or whatever as dessert not at all sad like I would have years ago. The longer my better habits go on, the less fun the treats are turning out to be, they never live up to the sense memory I'm hoping to duplicate, they just don't hit the spot like I remember.2
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rheddmobile wrote: »Yep, it happened to me when I reduced added sugars. I'm a diabetic so avoiding quickly-digested processed sugar was really a necessity for me. I used to be practically addicted to Coca-Cola and now it tastes so sweet it's nasty.
On the upside, fruits, dairy products and even some vegetables such as carrots and bean sprouts taste much sweeter to me now.
Yes, I reduced foods with added sugars for the calories and now they taste too sweet.
I'd probably find Thai iced tea from a restaurant too sweet now, but I mostly make Thai food from home these days.
When I lived in South Florida I had way more restaurant options than I do here.0 -
I think I'd be bummed out if I didn't still enjoy a good homemade pie or my favorite flavors of Jeni's ice cream or, say, an olive oil cake like I had at a local tapas place a couple of weekends ago. I kind of wonder if the idea that these no longer taste good is more of a mental thing, since I can eat sweets only on special occasions or go without for a couple of months and still enjoy them. I realize people are different, but I get this sense of "if you eat well you won't like anything with sugar, ick" with some posts. Maybe I'm misreading.
I do think that how you eat definitely affects what you tend to crave. When I'm eating as I like to, I crave the kinds of homemade dinners I usually make. When I get lazy and start ordering in more often I'll crave that kind of food (mmm, curry). But that I eat it much, much more rarely doesn't mean I don't enjoy Indian restaurant made curry -- it was my Friday dinner out choice, in fact -- little Indian place near a theater we were going to.1 -
Big one for me is when I quit eating our fellow mammals. It isn't just because they frolic/play and readily bond with humans but also because it isn't a sustainable way to feed everyone; the math for acreage and water used for each pound of protein is way out of what compared to poultry and fish. It was hard at first, but now seeing/smelling the things that were among my favorites really doesn't affect me either way.
It's best not to deny yourself of much when you are losing weight because it is hard to sustain that kind of habit. However, I started limiting and then skipping butter because it bothered me less than I expected. Now pre-buttered garlic bread seems greasy. I don't even miss butter in potatoes, especially not in sweet potatoes. I also started getting pickier about what breads I eat. I like soft break better, but I would almost always eat whatever bread was on the table. Now it isn't just a preference; I don't like the harder crustier breads. I sometimes take apart sandwiches when I am eating out even though I had room for them in my calorie budget because I don't like the bread.
I am now in maintenance and could make allowances and trade offs but don't for butter. Also prefer my turkey burger without cheese. I still eat a far amount of cheese, but found that having it on a burger was more of a habit than a preference.2 -
I'm like lemurcat with this. I never appreciated overly sweet things, even as a kid. This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy traditionally sweet things, but I didn't like anything that was sickly sweet.
I also never had trouble tasting the sweetness inherent in things like vegetables, fruit, or nuts.
I don't eat traditional sweets that often, mostly because I don't find them to be caloric bargains, but I still have them every now and then. I'm making myself a gluten free apple pie for Thanksgiving and am very much looking forward to it.2 -
Sure, my taste buds have changed as my eating has changed, but it wasn't just about "during weight loss". It's happened in various ways for various reasons at times over many decades: Learning to enjoy certain kinds of herb/spice flavor profiles I didn't grow up with, coming to enjoy spicy food more with time, liking stinkier cheeses, and - yes - beginning to find certain kinds of sweet foods "too sweet".
(One of my most recent things, which did mostly coincide with working on weight loss, was learning to like peanut butter - I'd always liked the flavor, but hated the texture. Similar for chewy kinds of noodles/pasta, like edamame spaghetti, say, which I've come to enjoy in some dishes but not as a wheat-pasta substitute across the board.)
For me, with sugar, it isn't that the sweetness tastes bad, really; it's that it can overwhelm other flavors, and the sweetness on its own just seems too simple. For example, I want a fruit pie to be a bit sweet, but also want to taste a range of flavors from the fruit and the richness/browned-carb nuttiness of the crust, and that sort of thing. For me, sugar kind of floods my taste buds and can overwhelm those other flavors. So, many common things (e.g., cheap baked goods, many candies, most sweetened drinks) seem "just sweet" and not worth the calories.0 -
I think I'd be bummed out if I didn't still enjoy a good homemade pie or my favorite flavors of Jeni's ice cream or, say, an olive oil cake like I had at a local tapas place a couple of weekends ago. I kind of wonder if the idea that these no longer taste good is more of a mental thing, since I can eat sweets only on special occasions or go without for a couple of months and still enjoy them. I realize people are different, but I get this sense of "if you eat well you won't like anything with sugar, ick" with some posts. Maybe I'm misreading.
I do think that how you eat definitely affects what you tend to crave. When I'm eating as I like to, I crave the kinds of homemade dinners I usually make. When I get lazy and start ordering in more often I'll crave that kind of food (mmm, curry). But that I eat it much, much more rarely doesn't mean I don't enjoy Indian restaurant made curry -- it was my Friday dinner out choice, in fact -- little Indian place near a theater we were going to.
I don't think it's a matter of eating well - for me as a diabetic, sugar is literally poison that will kill me if I eat too much of it. But that isn't true for healthy people.
There are other obvious changes when I eat differently. For example, I can smell bread at 100 paces now. I was never a big bread lover and didn't particularly miss it when I had to give it up (unfortunately white bread spikes my levels worse than almost any other food) but bread SMELLS so good to me now, it drives me nuts when people at neighboring tables eat it at restaurants! Smelling bread like this is definitely new since I started eating lower carb.1 -
For me, with sugar, it isn't that the sweetness tastes bad, really; it's that it can overwhelm other flavors, and the sweetness on its own just seems too simple. For example, I want a fruit pie to be a bit sweet, but also want to taste a range of flavors from the fruit and the richness/browned-carb nuttiness of the crust, and that sort of thing. For me, sugar kind of floods my taste buds and can overwhelm those other flavors. So, many common things (e.g., cheap baked goods, many candies, most sweetened drinks) seem "just sweet" and not worth the calories.
Agree with this, but it's something that I've experienced since being an adult at least, so not related to weight loss.
I totally agree that taste buds change over time -- mine changed as my palate got broader in my teen years (when I started liking really spicy foods) and as an adult (as I got exposed to much more fine dining and creative cooking and cuisines from all over the world (in Chicago there's a lot available). I just don't understand this idea that if you eat desserts pretty rarely they start tasting ick to you. Some do (and always have) tasted too sweet and uninteresting to me -- there are plenty of sweet things I don't care for and never have (or haven't since I was a little kid). But there are others that of course I like, and eating them less often hasn't changed that.
I eat my favorite Chicago-style pizza (Pequod's) about once a year, but I still enjoy it just as much!1 -
For me, with sugar, it isn't that the sweetness tastes bad, really; it's that it can overwhelm other flavors, and the sweetness on its own just seems too simple. For example, I want a fruit pie to be a bit sweet, but also want to taste a range of flavors from the fruit and the richness/browned-carb nuttiness of the crust, and that sort of thing. For me, sugar kind of floods my taste buds and can overwhelm those other flavors. So, many common things (e.g., cheap baked goods, many candies, most sweetened drinks) seem "just sweet" and not worth the calories.
Agree with this, but it's something that I've experienced since being an adult at least, so not related to weight loss.
I totally agree that taste buds change over time -- mine changed as my palate got broader in my teen years (when I started liking really spicy foods) and as an adult (as I got exposed to much more fine dining and creative cooking and cuisines from all over the world (in Chicago there's a lot available). I just don't understand this idea that if you eat desserts pretty rarely they start tasting ick to you. Some do (and always have) tasted too sweet and uninteresting to me -- there are plenty of sweet things I don't care for and never have (or haven't since I was a little kid). But there are others that of course I like, and eating them less often hasn't changed that.
I eat my favorite Chicago-style pizza (Pequod's) about once a year, but I still enjoy it just as much!
I agree. I have always liked both Coca Cola and fruit. For budget reasons I stopped getting fast food for several months, and when I finally did go back, I liked it just as much. I can't help but wonder if there isn't some virtue signaling in the whole "I don't even like that stuff anymore" thing.
Conversely, yeah my tastes have changed over the years, I wouldn't enjoy eating exactly the same diet as I did when I was 20. I enjoy more complex flavors and eat much more diverse foods. But I can still wax poetic over a mid summer nectarine and then enjoy some Lucky Charms for a late night snack. And now I really want to go to a steak house and get some butter topped steak!
I guess this is just another one of those things where everyone's different.4 -
My taste buds have definitely changed over the years, I think it's a natural progression. I used to adore sweets and meat, plus diet fizzy drinks and squash. I never liked eggs or potatoes.
Fast forward ten years and I am vegetarian (technically pescatarian but eating fish happens so rarely now as I never really fancy it anymore). I am very fussy about sweet things, and prefer to wait for something of a higher quality such as Hotel Chocolat. I eat eggs all the time, love potatoes, and base most of my meals around vegetables.0 -
I'm just way pickier than I used to be. I would just eat anything as long as it tasted good enough, lol. Now not so much.
Honestly though - lots of things are just too sweet anyway. Soda, juice, oreos, most pies... just way too sweet. I just didn't used to care (and I can still down a sleeve of oreos) - I don't think it's really my taste buds that have changed.1 -
I would say I am about the same. I think I prefer and enjoy more bitter things now, I am a bit more sensitive to sugar and salt. I have become very sensitive to sour though. I really don't enjoy things that are too sour, most fruits are not high on my love list (although I still eat them for health reasons but usually with some kind of fat source). I still don't like very strong cheeses, pumpkin pie, flan, beets, liver, coconut, chestnuts.. these are all things I didn't like as a child either.0
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Yes! Another thing I have noticed with my changing taste buds is what happens when I offer my family my "healthier" dishes. I am blessed to have family members who are not picky eaters at all. However, when they sample my healthier cooking, they either have a 'meh' reaction or a turned-up nose. They look at me as if they can't comprehend that I enjoy eating said food. Their taste buds are so used to hyper-palatable foods, that I really believe they are unable to taste the deliciousness that I experience when eating these simpler, home-cooked meals.1
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