Thursday, July 7, 2011

Retraining My Taste Buds

In my internet research into Meniere's Disease and the low salt diet, one of the more encouraging ideas that kept coming up is that your taste for salt can and will change. After a bit more than two weeks, I can confirm that this seems to be happening. A lot of things still taste bland to me and I'm still learning how to combat that with other herbs and spices, but I don't seem so mind the lack of salt on a lot of what we're making. And you can really taste the food itself, which is a plus!

I bought some "No Salt" - which is simply a chemically different "salt" than table salt - potassium chloride (KCl) rather than sodium chloride (NaCl). I've tried to limit my use of this salt substitute for two reasons: it doesn't taste exactly like table salt, and I want to retrain my taste buds to enjoy food without needing a strong salty flavor. I'd rather try some lemon juice or Mrs. Dash before I resort to the fake salt.

We went out to hear live music last night and my strategy was to eat before we left. While we were there, I snuck a french fry from PDM's plate, and even after brushing off much of the visible salt it tasted extremely salty to me. So maybe those taste buds are changing and I won't miss overly salted foods so much after all. At this rate, I probably won't be able to tolerate the really salty stuff in the future. And my tongue will be a reliable salt detector!

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