Disabling Senses: Taste
- SJ Williamson
- May 19, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 27, 2025
This is one of the blog posts in which I'm focusing on our senses and how they can be disabling. Each one will focus on one of the five senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing), and this week I'll be talking about taste!
Flavor
There are 5 basic tastes/flavors, which you can learn more about here. They include sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami, and they can be combined to enrich food taste.
Sweet- sugar, honey, and all our favorite baked desserts
Salty- olives, seaweed, and cured meats. (yum)
Sour- my personal favorite: lemons and limes!
Bitter- coffee and greens like arugula and spinach. probably my least favorite.
Umami- probably the least known of the flavors, it's savory! Think rich, buttery steaks.
These flavors can be strong or subtle, making certain foods less popular among their many tasters. For example, I love sour-sweet combos like Warheads that my partner finds disgusting. My beloved grilled shrimp is my cousin's disgust. We all have different preferences that make strong flavors less likely to be popular among all who taste them.
Among these preferences include consistency. You may wonder why young children prefer fruit snacks over blueberries or Cheezits over blackberries. A common belief here is that children like snacks that are consistent, that are the same every time in texture, taste, and flavor profile. Processed foods like fruit snacks and Cheezits are made to have that consistency, in addition to having plenty of addictive flavors and ingredients. Fruits, while delicious, varies. Some strawberries are sweeter, juicier, or more flavorful than others. Some families rely on long-used methods during grocery shopping to help identify watermelons that are more juicy and sweet or blueberries that are bursting in flavor. This is just the tip of the iceberg when we think about how taste affects us tasters.
Supertasters
You may have heard of supertasters before. A small portion of the human population has a specific gene that makes them more sensitive to tastes. While the name "supertasters" sounds like a power, it can also be disabling in foods that have especially strong tastes. Having healthy, bitter veggies or especially spicy meals may be unlikely for supertasters. What pleases the general population may overwhelm the supertasters. Some are even said to be unable to drink alcohol or coffee.
Additionally, there are certain foods that have such strong taste that around one third of the human population don't enjoy their tastes because of their genetic make-up. Grapefruit and cilantro are said to taste "soapy" or too bitter. I personally love cilantro and grapefruit, so I'm going to assume I don't have that supertaster gene that makes supertasters repel when they see these foods. However, it's important to note that these foods' addition to recipes and restaurant meals can repulse some supertasters. Despite being called "super," supertasters' tastes can be quite disabling.
Texture
I mentioned this briefly in my blog post on touch but texture is also important when it comes to taste and eating. Soft, crunchy, or in between, some foods are difficult to eat due to texture issues. For example, brussel sprouts are often disliked until someone cooks them in a way that makes them crispy. Overcooked rice can become mushy and repulsive. Soggy leftover nachos may not be as coveted as fresh nachos with crunchy chips. Since becoming wheat-intolerant, I have had to experiment with many many gluten-free recipes before finding breads, pizza crusts, and hamburger buns that taste good and have a reasonable texture. So many gluten-free pizza crusts are too crunchy, making the pizza-eating experience not what I want or expect.
Texture of foods has an effect on the taste and there must be a good balance of taste and texture. Since childhood, I have referred to the 3 T's of food: taste, texture, and temperature. Flavor can be great but if the texture or temperature of the food is off, it can easily overpower good flavor for me. I have a love for crunchy chips and soft pizza crusts. I like my meats and cheeses hot and my drinks cold. I love rich, flavorful meals. My preferences can be unwelcome at times, making eating or drinking more difficult than average person's experience. It could be considered disabling in the most extreme cases, as I simply cannot swallow some foods because of these "preferences," though I think they're more like requirements.
Food Related Disabilities
Taste can also be affected by disabilities. This was very popular knowledge about Covid-19 when people were said to lose their taste or smell as a symptom. When I got Covid in late 2023, I not only experienced taste difference, but textural difference as well. Most foods, including cough drops, tasted quite bitter, like eating a handful of dirt. The texture also felt like dirty earth, feeling quite mushy but also with distinct grains of sand that made swallowing food difficult for me. Thank God it was only temporary for me. My sense of taste came back by the end of the month.
Some taste-related disabilities are more permanent. Taste disorders may permanently cause inability to taste at all, reduced ability to taste certain flavors, or lingering tastes even without food that can be overwhelming or disgusting. I know the lingering taste of metallic, bitter earth while I had Covid was overwhelming. It wouldn't surprise me if people with these disorders didn't eat or drink as much or had nutritional deficiencies. I never thought of taste as a privilege until it disappeared for me during Covid. As a lover of food, it could have ruined my life if it had been permanent. I stress eat and eat as reward. What could replace the joy that food flavors bring me if that was taken away?
Long story short, taste can disable even when it is strong. What's your favorite flavor, and how would it change your life if you weren't able to experience it again?
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