Your sense of taste is unique, it is like no other. Every single person has a different sense of taste depending on their specific taste buds. Your taste buds reside on your tongue and the roof of your mouth. When you eat or drink, these cells send messages to your brain about how the food tastes. Overall, your taste buds recognize four basic kinds of tastes: sweet, salty, sour and bitter.
Out of all the five senses, your taste is the weakest sense. Your taste buds can change over time and can deteriorate, depending on whether you are a smoker, taking specific medications that affect your taste, or not getting enough vitamins.
If you’re looking to see how good your sense of taste is, ask yourself the following questions:
- Has your sense of smell deteriorated over time or gotten better?
Your sense of smell is strongly associated with your sense of taste, so if your sense of smell has changed, your sense of taste will most likely change too.
- Are you a smoker?
Smoking can affect your taste buds and in turn, affect your ability to taste foods.
- Do you take medication with any side-effects that affect your taste buds?
- Do you have a dry mouth?
A lack of saliva in your mouth can affect the ability of your taste buds to communicate with your brain.
- Do you have an illness or a cold?
Having an illness can have a temporary effect on your taste buds.
- Overall, rate your ability to enjoy your food and that can give you a good indication of your sense of taste.
Tips to improve your sense of taste
If you feel that your ability to enjoy your food has diminished, here are some tips to improve your sense of taste:
- Exercise—your sense of taste is heightened after exercising
- Drink water regularly to avoid having a dry mouth
- Don’t smoke
- Eat only when you’re hungry—you enjoy your food more when you are hungry
- Eat in a restaurant with other people—studies have shown that eating with other people makes food taste better than eating alone
- Add spice to your food
- Eat a different food with every spoonful
- Eat slowly and enjoy your food