Taste of Food

Let’s chat about how your taste changes while going through chemo. Prior to beginning treatment, the doctor’s made a strong point of the importance of hydrating. I didn’t think it would be an issue because I drank water and iced tea constantly every day. What I wasn’t expecting was the taste of everything to change so drastically.

Water & iced tea have a metallic taste to them and most food flavors are muted by about 90% leaving it tasting pretty much like flavored cardboard. 

A few days after my infusion a thick film arrives on my tongue. I brush my teeth/tongue every time I eat just to remove some of it. It doesn’t bring flavor back but at least the film is less. My tongue also feels a tad larger. That could be in my head though.

Eating a piece of bacon, cardboard!
Eating salad, cold cardboard. 
Eating soup, wet blended cardboard.

There’s one big exception, and that’s sweets. I have never in my life been a big sweets fan. I’ll go for salt & savory well before sweets. That is until now.  

Sweets taste exactly the same. How weird is that!?!?! 

Now I’m adding sweet flavoring to my water to make it more appealing to drink. 

Items I’m loving right now just because they taste normal:

• Chocolate Frosties from Wendy’s
• Jamba Juice smoothies & bowls
• Brown sugar & cranberry oatmeal
• Ice Cream
• Sweet Kale Salad
• Raisen or cranberry bagels
• Berry Pies from Shari’s
• Sweet potatoes
• Peanut Butter & jelly sandwiches (heavy on the jelly)

Not all sweets are normal though. A super sweet apple still tastes muted as do grapes.

Mike has to be my taste tester to know if it’s bland or if it’s just my taste buds.

It’s kind of a mind meld when you can smell bacon cooking in the kitchen, but when you go to eat it the flavor is wrong. 

Don’t get me wrong, this is a very minimal problem. I’m just trying to share my experiences through this journey, so people better understand other things patients deal with going through chemo.  

Here’s where I say if you’re wanting to send us items to help, gift cards to Jamba Juice, Panera Bread, and Wendy’s are perfect gifts right now.