In this chilly weather you might not want to get out of your warm blanket let alone go out with friends or even to work. Winter is the season of snuggling up in bed with a hot chocolate and a bowl of warm soup. It’s also the season to wear big overcoats and wrap yourself up in layers of clothing. If you don’t wear your winter clothes properly then you might catch the common cold or even fever, and that means not being able to get the right taste for food for days together!
For everyone out there thinking that maybe it’s just you who loses their ability to taste when sick, we’re here to tell you that you are not alone. It’s common to feel like you can’t taste your food when you’re ill. But have you ever wondered why that is? Here’s what is actually going on. The sense of smell and taste are related to each other. It is the smell that influences our taste of the food. Hence it is often difficult for us to distinguish between flavors with a stuffy nose. Let us tell you how this works.
The sense of smell and taste are related to each other.
While chewing, the aroma of our food travels through our nasal area. There the hair cells carry the odor related information to the brain. But when we a have cold, due to the mucus in our nose we are not able to smell the odor and hence our brain is not able to tell us about the flavor of the dishes that we are having. As a result we feel that our food tastes bland and we do not feel like having anything when we are sick.
All this doesn’t affect our judgement of the temperature of the food. Our taste buds help us determine whether a dish is hot or cold. So the cold merely blocks our nose and the sense of smell, but along with it our ability to taste food goes for a toss.
When the body is feverish, the water content in it decreases.
Fever changes the way we taste food. When we have fever, our body temperature rises and a higher temperature affects our oral cavity too. When the body is feverish, the water content in it decreases, which results in dehydration. We tend to have a dry mouth on fever, which also alters the taste of the food we eat.
You might have often experienced a loss of appetite when you have fever. That can be because of the increased intake of antibiotics, but more often than not, you don’t feel like eating much. You avoid food because it tastes bland and flavorless, because of what the cold has done to your taste buds. In order to fix your sense of taste, you should include more liquids in your diet, along with foods that contain vitamin C. As goes the old and very sage saying, prevention is better than cure. Take special care of your health during winters to protect yourself from the bacteria and viruses that can cause cold. It’s very important to wear proper warm clothes and take plenty ofimmunity-boosting foods to prevent the cold. Have a happy and hearty winter!
[“source=gadgets.ndtv”]
