Reset Your Tastebuds To Enjoy Healthy Foods
We all have been there. We want to eat healthily but we can’t avoid junk food. Junk food is often tasty while healthy real foods are not so tasty for us. But what if I told you that it’s possible to reset your tastebuds so that you start liking the taste of real foods. Let’s dive in and undo the damage of junk food to our taste buds so that we can eat healthy with enjoyment.
We have an innate preference towards sweet foods. Sugar gives us quick energy which our ancestors loved because they needed the energy to hunt, fight, flight and other primal activities we used to do.
Now, things have changed. We sit at our desk staring at the screen most of the times. We don’t need the quick energy anymore. But our sugar consumption has massively increased due to increase in high-sugar processed food consumption. Our body has no idea what to do with the extra energy so it stores it as fat. When this condition keeps on repeating, our body freaks out and we give rise to disease like type 2 diabetes.
The problem is that we are now surrounded by high sugar foods everywhere around us. So we have to take charge in our own hands and take care of our own health. The food industry or healthcare doesn’t care what you eat. You and only you control what goes in your mouth.
When we eat sugary food, we feel guilty if we overindulge. But in fact, it’s not our fault. We are wired to like sugar. Moreover, our genes, what our mothers ate during pregnancy, weaning, early childhood and teenage set the foundation of our taste preference. So, childhood is the best time to form healthy habits and develop taste for healthy foods.
However, this is not an excuse to keep on eating junk food just because of your genes or early development learning. You can still change your taste preferences in your adulthood if you’re willing to put in the effort towards your health. Let’s explore some of the major learning models relating to the development of taste preferences.
Mere Exposure
It suggests that repeated exposure to any stimuli results in increased preference. In other words, as we get more familiar with a food or flavor, we tend to develop a taste for it.
The exposure can also mean advertisements on TV, magazine, posters, etc. When we are exposed to the thought or taste of food, we like to choose familiar foods.
Neophobia and learned safety
Neophobia is an aversion to new tastes. This has to do with our primal need of safety. Back in the days, we had to safely choose foods which were not harmful to us. So, as we learned that a certain food is not harmful to our system, we developed a taste for it.
Even today, many times we become skeptical about foods that we’re trying for the first time. Once we try a food and we don’t find any symptoms or allergies, we tend to gradually like the taste of that food if we exposed to it often enough.
Flavor-Consequence learning
It suggests that repeated pairing a stimulus with a response gives rise to an acquired response towards a food. In other words, When we eat new foods, there is a normal response by the body (e.g. illness or energetic response) and an acquired response (e.g. liking/disliking the taste of a food).
This is the reason why we tend to start liking the taste of black coffee alcohol, dark chocolate, etc. after we consume it often times. Our body associates the good normal response with the liking of the taste i.e. the acquired response.
Flavor-Flavor model of evaluative learning
It is similar to flavor-consequence learning except that the consequence is replaced by another flavor. It means that whenever we pair flavor of food with another food we tend to gradually like the taste of new food.
If you like a certain food and you pair it with another food that you don’t like as much, you’ll eventually start to develop a taste for the new food.
What does it mean for me?
Let’s do a quick summary of the action points that you can take away:
1. Know that whenever you try something new, you’ll develop a taste for it if you have it more often. If your body feels good and you keep having a food on a regular basis, then you’ll learn to prefer its taste. You can give yourself challenges to eat a certain vegetable, dark chocolate or drink (like black coffee and tea) for some weeks and see if your taste buds adapt to the change.
2. Pair healthy foods that you don’t like with the foods that you like to enhance its taste. Eating healthy is important but make sure to enjoy your food as well. For example, mix vegetables with omelette, eat hummus with vegetables, make a smoothie, add healthy toppings (like vinegar, lime, herbs, spices and olive oil) to your salad or pair your salad with beans, avocado, sauteed onion or garlic.
3. Gradually decrease the amount of sugar or salt in your meals or drinks to change your taste preference. An alternative approach is to quit sugar and then gradually have more natural sugars from fruits and sweet vegetables (like carrots and sweet potatoes). This way, you’ll be able to identify the natural sweet taste better and you won’t need as much sugar anymore.
It is also important to minimize or avoid the consumption of processed food or added sugar to truly reset your taste buds. Start with foods that you already like and focus on what you can eat instead of what you won’t eat. Eventually, you’ll develop a taste for real foods and you’ll enjoy having them.
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