
That said, many other factors can cause a loss of taste, like cigarette smoking and increased age. If you're experiencing a sudden loss of taste alongside other COVID-19 symptoms, contact your healthcare provider as soon as possible. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has listed the new loss of taste and smell as a symptom of COVID-19. Take sugar, for example: "I recently tried to cut out soda from my diet and after a short time I found just a sip to be sickly sweet," says Dando.Recently, if you've heard about people losing their sense of taste, it's most likely related to COVID-19. And just as you can acclimate your tastes to like something new (or re-like something old), you can also change them to start disliking something. You can actually retrain your brain to like certain tastes by eating them more frequently.

You may have grown to hate salmon for example, because you got the stomach bug after eating it once, so now you associate it with nausea ( bleh).Īll of those factors can also play into why you might hate Brussels sprouts, while your sister loves them-because your experiences with the food differ.īut that doesn't mean you'll hate certain foods forever, either. While everyone has a similar sensitivity to the various basic tastes, you develop personal preferences over many years, depending on other factors like habits, upbringing, culture, memories, and context, says Dando.


Your taste buds die off and regenerate every few weeks.
