Have you asked yourself why the “worst” food for our skin, heart, body, etc taste so so good? I have… and after doing some research this is what I found.
If we try to understand how our taste buds work and what we can do to manipulate our palate, it will help us go further to getting good foods on our plates. What changes your food taste buds? Easy, the food you eat. That being said, if your food is high in fat, sugar, chemicals and salts, you have adapted your taste buds to eat that type of food, and when you eat real healthy food your first reaction will be: “I don’t like how it tastes”, “it tastes horrible”, etc.
I remember the first time I ate sushi, and I didn’t like it, I said I will never eat that again. My mom told me that I had to give it another try “until you get used to the taste“, and she was right! – Moms usually are – now I eat sushi all the time and it is one of my favorite foods. I have acquired the taste for it.
So, think for a second, if you have been drinking let’s say whiskey or vodka since you were a child, whenever you drink a glass of water or anything else the taste of it will be bland and boring. The same thing happens with food. If you are used to have sugary, fatty or salty food, and someone asked you to try a broccoli your first reaction would be “I do NOT like it”, and find it “tasteless” or that it is missing something, right? Or think that real and fresh food taste like junk, when it is actually the other way around.
The easiest way to change that, is to not let your addictions run your life. As we all know, the human body needs a variety of nutrients (sugar, salt, and fat), and to get those nutrients from a foraging diet is difficult sometimes. Foods like sugar, milk products, coffee and even meats all have addictive qualities in them, and when you eat them your brain changes, something that will not happen when you eat a broccoli or a carrot for example. We have to help ourselves at becoming attracted to healthy food.
The good news is that our taste can change.. yayyyy!!! It comes with a price, but it can change. You will have to stop eating foods high in sugar, fat and salt for a few weeks and let your taste buds become “virgin” again… and you will start enjoying the sweetness in healthy food.
Even our skin suffers when we eat food that happen to be the most delicious but is bad for us. The best way to explain why the skins suffers is the sugar that our liver doesn’t pick up gets into your collagen. Our body will identify it as a damaged goods and will chew it up, and that’s not good news.
Baby steps for everything. The good news is that there’s not a single reason to skip Dark Chocolate… so have a piece today and tomorrow.
Again, too much of anything is never good, but a balance is always the best way to go. I see posts all the time with things like some days you run 10 miles others you have Nachos and Tequila, it is called balance ha! It is never too late to start fresh, to start having new and healthier habits.
We had a TV commercial back home that said: you can’t say no if you haven’t tried it, and it is just perfect right now… Veggies are not the enemy, try them one time, two times, three times if you have to, become friends with them, it is just a matter of time that you will be eating healthier.
“Empty” pizza box from Bar Sienna
Hayley says
I totally agree that our taste can change for the better. So many people don’t realize that sugar and other additives have addictive qualities, I’m glad that you’re highlighting that 🙂 Great post!
Christie says
Thank you Hayley! 😉