Grown-up Eating

Here's something I wrote some time around 2:00 AM Thursday:

Since I have two huge projects due tomorrow and my roommates are out of the picture (gone for the weekend/asleep, like all of the other normal people I know) so I can't bother them, I thought I'd write a new post...

I'm pretty sure I am losing my taste. Okay, some would argue I never had taste to begin with. And they'd be correct. But I'm not referring to my lack of appreciation for the more sophisticated things of life, here. I am talking about my actual taste buds... aging.

I think they are becoming less sensitive. Yesterday Lauren made pumpkin bread from a prepared mix. It was mildly flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg and stuff. I thought it was pretty good. But Jakki didn't like it because it had too many spices. I hardly noticed them...

Chinese food? Not spicey at all. My orange tofu had a chili pepper next to it on the menu. Tasted pretty bland to me. Lemonade? Required me to add more water and some pure lemon juice to the bottle so I didn't feel like I was drinking sugar water. Sour Patch Kids? They taste like Swedish Fish. And my mom has started getting annoyed because apparently I add red pepper flakes to everything...

So clearly I have much lower thresholds for certain tastes than I used to. The only thing that gives me hope is that my little bud-a-roos are actually MORE sensitive to two flavors: sugar and salt. If anything, I thought the pumpkin bread was too sweet. Same with the orange tofu. And salty is even worse. Corn chips! Wheat Thins! I have to brush the thick layer of salt from the surface before it goes in my mouth or it will taste awful, like I am swallowing seawater... crunchy, whole-grain seawater. I even found myself picking small crystals off of pretzel sticks with my fingernail the other day.

My tongue is becoming gustatorily polarized!

Oh well. At least I still like butter.