How Much Salt?

          I remember my dad always salting his food when I was younger.  At times it seemed he was over-salting. 

          I remember one time he had asked for some popcorn.  Patrick and I put some in a bowl and added what we believed to be a generous amount of salt.  When we went into his room to see how he liked the popcorn, he said it could use more salt.  Patrick and I both dropped our mouths in disbelief.  So his next batch got an almost equal salt/popcorn ratio.  He said it was perfect.  Are you kidding me?  If I ever used salt on anything, it definitely NEEDED it.  I hate the taste of salt.

          Now that I am older – even older than my dad – I find myself using salt more and more as I believe all my food is bland – and maybe it is.  Or maybe my lack of smell is finally catching up with my taste buds and I salt in order to taste.  How wicked!

Another Sense Dulled - Maybe Even Lost

I can remember staying home from school one day when both my mom and I were sick.  She made us a really great lunch consisting of halibut, baked potato and corn.  Neither one of us was able to taste anything on our plate.  The only real difference about the food itself was the texture on the tongue.  Otherwise the taste was pretty much the same.

I had forgotten about that incident until yesterday when I added salt to the chicken noodle soup and later on the spaghetti (never in my entire lifetime have I added salt to spaghetti before) because I couldn’t taste them.  I couldn’t taste the pancakes or egg I had this morning.  I couldn’t taste my orange juice or medicine.  Great for the medicine.  That stuff is nasty – and I wonder if that is what dulled my taste buds in the first place or if it is this sinus infection.

I still don’t feel  as unhealthy as I did in May when I wanted to die.  Still, I don’t feel great.  If my taste buds are now a permanent condition, it will be so much easier to lose weight as I normally eat for enjoyment and not necessarily out of need.  Right now there is no enjoyment involved.  So why bother.

I Have Anosmia - Two Scientific Word Definitions

        Ageusia is the loss of taste functions of the tongue, particularly the inability to detect sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and saltiness. This disorder can be triggered by many factors such as nerve damage or vitamin deficiency. Ageusia is sometimes confused with anosmia – a loss of the sense of smell.*

        My sense of smell has become dulled over the years - I would guess due to allergies.  My mom's sense of smell had been dulled as both of her parents were smokers.  I would rather lose my sense of smell to allergies than an example I learned about quite recently.

        One of the science instructors in the school district was telling about a classmate she had gone to school with.  He was a jock that wanted to prove his "macho-ness" by smelling an acid - a very foolish move on his part, for when he inhaled, the acid burned the insides of each nostril and he hasn't been able to smell since that time.

        It's kind of cool to know that my loss of smell has a scientific name.

                                                                            

* retrieved from wikipedia