When I Am Stuffy, Food Tastes Yucky

I have a cold. My nose is stuffed.

It’s filled with mucus; breathing’s tough.

But worst of all, food has no taste:

it’s more like cardboard mixed with paste.

Please, Dr. Jo, what’s going on?

Just where has all that good taste gone?

I know with colds it’s hard to smell,

but why’s it hard to taste, as well?

Your taste receptors can pick up

sweet, sour, salt, and bitter stuff.

Plus something called umami, too:

a meaty taste in soup and stew.

Those taste receptors aren’t gone;

when you get stuffed, they still turn on.

The problem is, it’s hard to tell

what food you’re tasting without smell.

Your food has scents that slowly float

back from your mouth, into the throat,

then up the nose, way deep inside

where tiny smell receptors hide.

Inside your nose is really where

we tell an apple from a pear,

or chicken from a piece of fish.

It’s smell that makes them taste delish.

But too much mucus blocks the flow;

there’s no place for the scents to go.

And without smell, it’s hard to savor

food, because you taste less flavor.

If you’re stuffy, then you should

find other things that make food good:

like if it’s got a spicy kick,

or textures—creamy, thin, or thick,

or if it’s chewy, or has crunch.

All that will help you like your lunch.

And soon your cold will end! So then

you’ll smell those smells in food again.

MORE COOL FACTS ABOUT TASTE

• Flies can taste with their legs. This makes sense because the first part of the fly that comes into contact with something good to eat is often its legs. For example, if a fly lands on a drop of spilled soda, its legs will detect something sweet, and it can extend its proboscis to suck it up. Flies also have taste buds on their mouthparts and on the edges of their wings.

• If you want to see how important smell is in your ability to taste something, try this test: cut up a few small chunks of apple or pear and a few small pieces of onion. Close your eyes and pinch your nose and have someone feed them to you one at a time. You’ll be surprised at how hard it is to tell one from the other.