We Can Change What Foods We Like and Don't Like

by Sheryl McMillan

Probably the two biggest factors that concern most of us when faced with the prospect of changing our diets are taste and quantity. We want our food to taste good to us and we want enough of it to avoid feeling hungry.

Something that many people don't realise, however, is that our individual likes and dislikes for various foods can be changed radically.

Some of us know we should alter our diets to something more healthy but many continue eating foods that range from less than healthy to downright dangerous and yet believe there is nothing wrong with such a diet. This is because much of what influences our perception of what constitutes a healthy diet is based on erroneous information. We are largely conditioned to believe certain food are good for us because we were told this as a child by our parents, schools etc., who were also perpetuating unsound nutritional advice. In addition we are bombarded by multi-million pound ad campaigns by everyone from the fast food chains to organisations that promote the various industries.

One such slogan which I recall vividly growing up in the USA went "milk, it does a body good". Now, this statement is actually true, however, they forgot to mention whose body it "does good". If we're talking about the body of a baby cow then it is correct but if we're talking about a human it is not.

Nonetheless we have grown up in an environment where these types of messages have become so pervasive as to appear to be fact.

In summary we have become a society with eating habits driven by conditioning and heavy advertising and the result is often food choices that are unhealthy and yet many believe their diets are perfectly sound.

We are chronically over-stimulated by processed foods with elevated salt and sugar content and as a result our perception of taste has become altered.

Professor Bob Ritter and his colleague Mihai Covasa believe that a lot of us have become IMMUNE or insensitive to fat. Their experiments suggest that if all you eat is chips and fast food, which tend to be very high in fat, eventually your body's "I'm full" signals quit working properly. And eventually you become what you eat. You become… fat. http://www.wsu.edu/DrUniverse/foods.html

The good news is that our perception of what tastes good can be changed, it is not set in stone. We humans are extremely adaptable. Think about it logically, people in various parts of the world have wildly varying diets. We are not born liking this and hating that.

I had a friend once who purported to hate rice of any kind. If he had been born in Vietnam do you think he would just starve? Of course not, he would instead have developed a perfectly normal appreciation for rice. His so-called hatred of rice was conditioned or was possibly not taste related at all but may have been an association with something else that triggered a negative emotion.

There are a few factors that do influence our sense of taste and differ between individuals. We each are born with around 9000 taste buds and these sensors detect sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Some people are what scientists call 'supertasters' who have increased sensitivity to certain taste elements like bitterness or sweetness. Most of our ability to taste food, however, is actually due to our sense of smell.

Changing our perception of foods and 'acquiring a taste' for new and more healthy alternatives to our current eating habits can be done simply by realising that it is possible. We must break our resistance to change and break out of our 'comfort zones' and simply start eating the foods that are more healthy and in this process we WILL begin to enjoy these foods and find ways to make dishes incorporating them that fit us individually. (For great recipe ideas see Phillip Day's book Food For Thought)

I have found this to be true for myself with regard to sugar for example. Many years ago I had to have several sugars in my tea and drinking tea without sugar was not an option, it was horribly bitter. I began by reducing the sugar, little by little, until in a few weeks I was happily drinking the exact same tea with no sugar at all and it didn't taste bitter to me. Adaptability is the key and it is perfectly logical when you think about the diverse cultures all over the world and the varied diets and yet we (as humans) are all still basically the same creatures.

Children can be a bit of a challenge to get to eat healthy because they are driven entirely by taste with no regard for the nutritional aspect. They are also heavily marketed to and led by peer pressure in many areas of their lives. Nonetheless the same process of change applies.

Wendy Vukosa writes in an article on the food doctor website: "Many of the processed foods manufactured for children contain artificial colourings, preservatives, sweeteners and flavour enhances. Many of these have subclinical addictive properties. If the diet is high in sugar, salt and processed foods then taste sensation and taste perception is slightly altered due to the intense flavour reactions from these foods. When removing these foods from your child’s diet and steering them towards a more natural diet you may find that they go through a couple of weeks when they are very difficult and make high demands for their old processed favourites. This is like a withdrawal period, when subclinical addictions are worked through and taste buds and taste perception are restored to a normal setting. Once this has occurred your children should be more able to enjoy healthy natural foods and will of course be at less risk of becoming overweight or developing obesity or diabetes". http://www.thefooddoctor.com/displayarticle_HV.htm?ArticleID=150

One should also be aware that drugs can alter our perception of taste.

Research has shown that someone taking several medications at the same time can need almost 12 times as much salt and three times as much sugar to get the same taste sensation as someone who is not taking several medications. http://www.assisted.com/seniorguide/tastebuds.htm

Once we are aware of these concepts we can eliminate barriers to changing to more healthy diets. Not everyone perceives taste the same but we can all change our individual perceptions over time once we realise we are eating out of habit or erroneous conditioning. So no more excuses! Get out of the 'comfort food' cycle and reap the benefits.

For more information on this subject see;

Health Wars and Food For Thought by Phillip Day

Comparing Sensory Experiences Across Individuals: Recent Psychophysical Advances Illuminate Genetic Variation in Taste Perception, LindaM. Bartoshuk, Department of Surgery, Yale University School of Medicine