What would you eat if you couldn’t taste anything?

[bostonimproper]

I’ve lost 95% of my sense of smell and about 70% of my sense of taste due to virus-who-must-not-be-named. I figure why not lean into it and change up my palate (assuming it ever comes back).

So, if taste wasn’t an “issue”, what would you eat?

[jacob]

"Taste" is a fairly complex variable out of which smell and taste are just two factors although they may be the more important ones. There's also appearance, mouthfeel, heat, ... and probably a bunch of other factors.

If you're open to gaming it, you could try eating for calories only: Rice+beans+vegetables. Same thing over and over. The psychological adjustment should happen in short order (a few weeks) as it normalizes into a habit. After that, cooking and eating will be super-convenient but likely no longer a source of joy/recreation. Eating will just become something one does... like going to the toilet.

Not being constrained by taste it would also be possible to play around and eat healthy foods that most hate. Celery, cod liver oil, ... basically food that's good for you but tastes awful. You could optimize for health w/o caring what it tastes like or wasting any time making it taste great.

One thing of concern is that the sense of smell is a safeguard towards chemically dangerous things like rotten food, etc. so it might be helpful to ask a non-infected person for a smell-check before eating something.

PS: You can say [long]-COVID. I just don't want to have to moderate a politically charged thread. Talking about medical consequences is ok. Igniting culture wars is exasperating.

[basuragomi]

Spiciness and thermal heat levels are sensed by heat receptors so should still work. For textural variety, mix along the soft-hard, brittle-ductile, homogeneous-heterogeneous, granular-fibrous axes.

I'd probably try eating ultra-bitter stuff like grass, rock tripe, cambium, citrus rinds, spruce tips and carrot peels. And IPAs?

[shaz]

I'm down with trying grass and spruce tips, but IPAs is a step too far.

[Jean]

While you question is about not tasting anything, I can't help but ask how much you tried to actually taste something?
Eating very salty or sweet might not be a good thing, but very some very biter or acid stuff are actually quite healthy.
I enjoy hops tea (i found some in a forest nearby), lemons are also quite healthy, altough too acid for my taste.
I never eared of people hating celeri i must say, is that really a thing?
Spruce tips are really god, the taste isn't extremly strong. But be sure they are spruce. I'de rather say it for nothing, but yew can be deadly, and i could see someone taking a yew for a spruce or a fir.

As a general strategy, i'de use the stuff we usually put a bit of for taste, but in much larger quantities (as long as they aren't unhealthy in those quantities).

[sky]

Dandelion leaves. Supposedly highest levels of nutrients, but bitter.

[C40]

In your situation I think texture becomes much more important than usual. As others noted there are some things I don't like the taste of that I might eat more of if I couldn't taste it. (Kale.. some fermented or perhaps pickled things.. various fruits and vegetables like bittermelon (god it's horrible), durian, etc.)

[ertyu]

I would probably take the time to fast, possibly w bulletproof coffee if headaches (black coffee by itself will make me hungry about an hour later compared to equivalent quantity of water)

[Henry]

Isn't there still some type of sensory remnant of what it did taste like? Like, could you actually eat horse crap even though you don't taste it? I don't see how the senses can be atomized this way.