What Are the Factors That Affect Our Sense of Taste and Smell?

[K.J.Healey]

I despise the taste of cilantro.
I cannot stand the texture of cottage cheese.
And I'm queasy about eating the internal organs of any animal. Though liver isn't that bad.
There is also something about Papaya that makes me hate it. But Mangoes are ok.

Psychological:
I have trouble drinking Orange Juice since drinking a little more than a half gallon of it as a 5yr old. I threw up everywhere and really killed my stomach. The taste of it makes my stomach acid boil.

I cannot stand the smell of watermelon. Worked at ABC Warehouse and they gave away watermelons with appliance purchases. As a stockboy at the time I was required to, by hand, dispose of the ones at the bottom of the pallet that happened to turn brown, black and white. I lifted a green one up but my hand sunk into the bottom of it where it was black and white with sick decay. No watermelon for me. The smell triggers.OH! and the texture of Squash with brown sugar. BLEH!

 

[binzing]

If its already been said, kill me.
Lutefisk

 

[jim mcnamara]

[sortof science]
Had a nutritionist colleague . His view on likes/dislikes in food bolied down to a largely biological one. The airborne molecules that our olfactory plates find "matches" for and we can detect vary among people. This affects how we perceive and taste foods.
There is also the 'what I ate as a kid' thing, too.

Example: among other things melons have polyalcohols, and some complex aromatic oils.
These contribute a lot to our smelling these foods. Depending on which combinations of these compounds you perceive, you might hate or love cantelope, be blah about watermelon, or throwup at the sight of cucumbers.

A lot smells we perceive as bad are acids - butyric acid is "bad foot smell", some are ammonia-related bases like the bacterial catlysis products of trietylamine in fish - rotten fish odor, some are thiols or sulfides. We can detect these in minute amount - hydrogen sulfide in 1 part per billion for example. Rancid butter is rancid in a large part because of the presence butryric acid.
[/sortof science]

Anyway, if for example, you could not perceive butyric acid, you could easily eat butter that was going bad. I've eaten going-bad butter. It was okay, but kinda piquant.

Anyhow - I can smell virtually nothing. If you pulverize an ounce of rosemary or garlic I can smell it. Sorta. I can also sort of smell smoke - which is good.

Guess what? Nobody in our family uses me as the taste test guinea pig. I eat things by accident that make other people puke. And they do not faze me at all. I've learned not to eat green fuzzy things from the fridge. Dried out pizza is pretty good, chewy though.
Dry-ish bacon is okay if you fry it first. Dry crumbly sour cream, with the blue fuzz removed is also good. Kinda piquant, too.

I don't really like salty foods, but I eat them just fine.

The flip side of this is I do not seem to get dyspepsia or problems in the posterior end of the alimentary canal either. I can clean up vomit or decaying animal carcasses or pet droopings with zero problems. You do not want me as your personal chef, however.

 

[jim mcnamara]

PS: green eggs and ham - I will eat them Sam I Am. Call me jimIam.

 

[lisab]

[sortof science]
Had a nutritionist colleague . His view on likes/dislikes in food bolied down to a largely biological one. The airborne molecules that our olfactory plates find "matches" for and we can detect vary among people. This affects how we perceive and taste foods.
There is also the 'what I ate as a kid' thing, too.

Example: among other things melons have polyalcohols, and some complex aromatic oils.
These contribute a lot to our smelling these foods. Depending on which combinations of these compounds you perceive, you might hate or love cantelope, be blah about watermelon, or throwup at the sight of cucumbers.

A lot smells we perceive as bad are acids - butyric acid is "bad foot smell", some are ammonia-related bases like the bacterial catlysis products of trietylamine in fish - rotten fish odor, some are thiols or sulfides. We can detect these in minute amount - hydrogen sulfide in 1 part per billion for example. Rancid butter is rancid in a large part because of the presence butryric acid.
[/sortof science]

Anyway, if for example, you could not perceive butyric acid, you could easily eat butter that was going bad. I've eaten going-bad butter. It was okay, but kinda piquant.

Anyhow - I can smell virtually nothing. If you pulverize an ounce of rosemary or garlic I can smell it. Sorta. I can also sort of smell smoke - which is good.

Guess what? Nobody in our family uses me as the taste test guinea pig. I eat things by accident that make other people puke. And they do not faze me at all. I've learned not to eat green fuzzy things from the fridge. Dried out pizza is pretty good, chewy though.
Dry-ish bacon is okay if you fry it first. Dry crumbly sour cream, with the blue fuzz removed is also good. Kinda piquant, too.

I don't really like salty foods, but I eat them just fine.

The flip side of this is I do not seem to get dyspepsia or problems in the posterior end of the alimentary canal either. I can clean up vomit or decaying animal carcasses or pet droopings with zero problems. You do not want me as your personal chef, however.

Have you always been this way? Is it genetic, or aging, or a chemical exposure?

I've had some nasty run-ins with solvents that have muted my sense of smell temporarily, but I know chemists who have obliterated their sense of smell permanently with lab mishaps.