Taste buds help set your body’s metabolic machine in motion, as does your sense of smell. When a taste receptor recognizes a flavor - sweet, salty, sour, bitter, or umami (savory) - it sets off a biochemical reaction called transduction, translating chemical information from the taste stimulus into an electrical message that travels through the cranial nerves to the gustatory cortex of your brain. And each tiny taste bud contains about 50 to 80 specialized taste-receptor cells. Those small bumps on your tongue, roof of your mouth, and throat are called papillae, and each of them is home to up to 700 taste buds. Get a mirror, stick out your tongue, and say hello to your taste buds, all 10,000 of them. And once your palate is back on track, it will steadily guide you toward healthier (and tastier) choices. The good news, Katz says, is that no amount of processed food will permanently alter that. “We’re born with an inherent ability to taste real food on a deep level.” “It’s never too late to get your taste buds back on the right track,” says Rebecca Katz, MS, director of the Healing Kitchens Institute at Commonweal and author of The Healthy Mind Cookbook. Swanson’s experience of a newly awakened palate is not unique. “That Samoa was so sweet - really overly sweet.”

“I had a box of Girl Scout cookies around the house, so I decided to treat myself,” she says. She found herself appreciating the simple pleasure of a mixed green salad dressed with homemade vinaigrette, instead of her usual dose of store-bought ranch dressing.Īnd after a month of healthier eating, something else caught her by surprise: Some of the processed foods she used to love just didn’t taste nearly as good. She even began eating fish, which she had long avoided. “Suddenly, I was eating baked sweet potatoes three days a week, and they tasted great.” “I discovered sweet potatoes, which I had always avoided because of their texture,” Swanson says. For 30 days, she eliminated all processed foods and ate vegetables, lean meats, seafood, eggs, and certain fruits, plus plenty of healthy fats.Īs the weeks passed, something unexpected happened: She started noticing the flavors of these real, whole foods. So when a friend asked her to team up for a monthlong detox last spring, the 30-year-old photographer decided to go all in. She craved potato chips, mac and cheese, and soda, even though she knew they weren’t good for her. Like many people who grew up on processed fare, “healthy” foods just didn’t taste as good to Swanson.

Green leafy veggies, salmon, and quinoa? Not so much. Melanie Swanson loved pizza and hot dogs ever since she was a kid.

How to help get your taste buds back