#supertasters

[dragonraptyr]

Regarding Force Sensitivity and the recent discussions about Sabine: y'all, what if it's like the difference between being a Supertaster, and taking the time to develop your palate?

[grouchydairy]

Similarly, our sensitivity to bitter foods is largely associated with a gene called TAS2R38,40 and you can measure yours at home by picking up some paper test strips saturated with a chemical called 6-n-propylthiouracil41 (PROP), which are widely available online. About half the population finds these strips moderately bitter42 ("tasters"), while a quarter finds them unpalatably bitter ("supertasters"), and another quarter describes them as having no taste at all ("nontasters"). Supertasters also tend to have a higher density of taste buds,43 and although this might sound like a coveted foodie superpower, supertasters are likely to be pickier eaters44 and avoid things like coffee, wine, spirits, dark chocolate, and various fruits and vegetables (e.g., grapefruit, broccoli, kale) because they find them too bitter.

Matt Siegel (The Secret History of Food)

[copperbadge]

Do you have thoughts on all-dressed chips?

I can't think if I've ever had all-dressed, I don't think I have. I'm familiar with them conceptually but they're not found in the US very often. I've definitely seen them like, available on store shelves once in a while (I think Lays sometimes does them seasonally) but I've generally assumed they'd suffer from Everything Bagel Syndrome.

I don't know how normal people encounter the everything bagel, or even just the Everything Bagel seasoning that for example Trader Joe's sells. Given the general enthusiasm for it, I suppose it's pretty popular, but I've never seen the point. Everything bagels just taste like onions to me -- onion is of course one of the toppings but it's so dominant that it's basically "crunchy texture from the sesame/poppy plus overwhelming onion". I don't know if it's that most people aren't aware that 90% of what they're tasting is onion, or if I'm over-tasting the onion because I'm a supertaster and that's a particular sensitivity of mine.

Onion's a nice flavor, I don't dislike it and I see why people go nuts for Everything if they don't realize it's onion. But whenever I encounter all-dressed or everything flavors, I just think, well, if I want that I'll just get onion flavor and skip the mess. It's only just occurring to me that I actually don't know if all-dressed would be the same. I'll have to keep an eye peeled and try them out.

Unless all-dressed also includes jalapeno flavor. Fuck that shit. :D

[whetstonefires]

Overly sensitive re: flavour, OR are you a Super Taster? I've loved that term since I read it in a textbook on the psychology of food and drink. It's like a superpower, except for all the ways it sucks

sdl;akjfs that might be the same thing? idk, i know there are some Supertaster benchmarks i don't hit, and i've followed the common trend of becoming more tolerant to bitterness etc with age.

but taste is complicated even as human sensory systems go, with there being first of all the five different types of basic chemoreceptor on the tongue, each of which can individually be particularly sensitive (detects smaller portions) or particularly 'loud' (data priority in brain; subject to training but to some extent hardwired) and then there's the more complex chemoreceptors in your nose which are also active in the food-tasting process, detecting all the more delicate nuances, which are also subject to varying strength and priority.

and then there's however your sensory processing system mixes and interprets those chemical readouts, in combination with texture feedback etc, and how well you filter that data.

so i assume that supertasting is an elaborate spectrum in its own right, which when superimposed on the autism one creates a universe of unique snowflakes with very specific food orders.

I definitely taste sour way more acutely than a lot of other people, which has caused me repeated conflicts with my dad's cooking, because what he thinks is the right amount of vinegar to get a sauce or something to really pop is, to me, enough vinegar that no other flavor remains in the dish, and it can only serve as a sort of pickle garnish. an unfortunate fate for the main dish lmao.

we feuded in an easygoing way over How To Properly Sautee Cabbage for years.

this is probably why i tend to dislike sourdough bread. the sour is loud enough that it obstructs the subtle pleasures of 'bread' flavor.

similarly for coffee. i need so much cream to lock up its bitterness before I can consume it comfortably. i can enjoy black tea without milk, though, as long as it's not oversteeped, and the main flavor there is certainly 'bitter,' and it's even some of the same tannins that are too much in coffee. so what's with that?

otoh when a thing is 'sour' 'sweet' and 'bitter' all at once and also mushy and wet, my mouth informs me emphatically and relentlessly that this is actually rotting vegetables and i need to spit it out right now, which doesn't strike me as a problem that arises from how well i'm detecting any of that.

third hand, someone helping me out here ig, i spent years frustrated about the subtle weird taste in my home-baked bread only to at last determine that it was 1) active dry yeast does not taste quite as nice as the live yeast professional bakeries often purchase in large cakes and 2) iodized table salt degrades at very high temperatures, creating a faint chemical tang, and these two factors were undermining the flavor of my loaves in a way no one else seemed able to detect. but maybe i was just paying more attention.

also fourth hand, for a couple months after my senses seemed to have otherwise more or less recovered from Covid the 'sweet' dial remained turned up weirdly high relative to the other major taste bands, and i don't think my salt tolerance has entirely reverted to this day.

[the-real-btr]

Following your debut as superheros, what would your superpowers be?

Great question- we've had very deep discussions about this in the past, so we're thoroughly prepared. Since Carlos is the most excited, we're letting him go first.

Carlos - OK well, I've said this before , but I'll say it again: METEOR MAN !! I mean, that's not really a power, its my superhero name...but as Meteor Man, I would rid the world of evil with my radio active fireblasting abilities!!! 💥🦸‍♂️(oh yeah, and Meteor Man can fly) UPDATE: Buzzkill Logan says I can't use Meteor Man cuz its taken...so I'm stickin with El Hombre Del Flaming Space Rock Man!! 😁🔥)

Kendall - Any power that makes transportation easier. Flying would be cool. Cliché answer, I know...but it really WOULD be cool. Teleportation is another good one- especially when you need to travel as often as we do.

James 💎 - Well, I already have superhuman good looks AND strength, so I can't use those answers...I'll just go with Bandana Powers. I'd have a sweet bandana lasso, and I would tie the bad guys up with bandanas. And no, it's NOT stupid, guys. Bandanas aRE COOL. 😤 (why isn't there a bandana emoji???)

Logan - Shapeshifting. In my opinion, this is absolutely the most comprehensive superpower. If you want to fly, become a bird. If you want to be invisible/tiny, become a flea. If you want to be super strong, become a bodybuilder. Or, if you'd like, an African bush elephant (strongest animal in the world, FYI). You can literally be anyone, or anything.

P.S. Long live the Supertastic Super-6! (Aw man, you almost can't see me- thanks a lot, Super Rude Gustavo 🙄 ~ Meteor Man/El Hombre Del Flaming Space Rock Man)

~ Kendall, James, Carlos, and Logan

[jaystarry]

i could be killed for this but frankly someone needs to speak the truth. all colors of bell pepper taste exactly the same with little to no variance

[wantonlywindswept]

it took three tries for me to find something edible for lunch today and i think that was so brave of me

also who the fuck makes spicy pasta sauce

[stagefoot]

At today’s meet-and-greet there was a container with strawberries and pineapple

And I love strawberries and I HATE pineapple (even more than I love strawberries) so I was like

[xcziel]

picky eater/supertaster update:

so far the Sneaky Peas system has been a success. best practice is 6-8 frozen peas washed down between every few bites of minute rice with campbell's golden mushroom soup straight out of the can (delicious to me for nostalgia reasons)

now if only i could figure some convenient way of rendering broccoli or like spinach into frozen easy-to-swallow form ...

[scienceisfood]

I lost my sense of smell/flavor

[theonlybezo]

I don't know the prevalence of supertasting in the autistic community, but I am both autistic and a supertaster and one of the ways I exist is to measure and categorize everything so, without ado of any kind, here are my tolerance levels for various tastes.

Feel free to add your own, regardless of your autistic or supertaster status.

Sweet: 7/10 (there is such a thing as too sweet but it'll take a lot to push me away)

Salty: 8/10 (I crave that mineral and even when I can feel it burning my lips, there are very few things that could be considered too salty for me)

Sour: 2/10 (I do not enjoy anything more sour than tomato ketchup)

Bitter: 1/10 (Bitterness absolutely ruins food for me. I cannot drink coffee or eat many vegetables because of this)

Spicy: 3/10 (I like a bit of tingle but anything that attacks the tongue or remains in the mouth for more than a few seconds is bad)

Earthy: 1/10 (This is probably a subcategory of bitter but anything like mushrooms is right out)

Fermented: 0/10 (included in this category is alcohol, kombucha, and any cheese in which mold is a feature. Anything that tastes of rot is not something I wish to experience)

[fruitgoat]

Probably won't be post much for at least a week. I've got a couple members of the Chicago based Family visiting and that means everyone else is visiting too. But I just need to rant for a minute about the obliviousness that is My Mom. I just had to explain to her Yet Again, that although my brother and niece do not stay kosher, they are still Jewish and that perhaps pork for Friday Dinner would not be appropriate.

[copperbadge]

Bought a couple bags of lay’s dill pickle flavored potato chips because Walmart was selling them for 2 bucks per and was the only flavor they’d ship to me. Thought of you when I was eating them. Spoiler alert: they do not, in fact, taste like dill pickles. More like less salty and less sour salt and vinegar chips.

I often do actually like dill pickle chips for precisely that reason -- I really like salt and vinegar chips but because of the supertaster thing they're often too intensely flavored for me.

Like, I have to eat Doritos weird so that the extra seasoning doesn't get on my lips and then burn my tongue when I lick it off. It's the dumbest fucking genetic quirk I have, I swear. I'd take an uptick in the ADHD if I could get rid of the damn supertasting.

Anyway usually dill pickle flavored chips don't have that weird rancid butter flavor that actual pickles have for me, and they're mellower than salt and vinegar chips, so I tend to enjoy them. But lately I've been making my own dill pickle cashews with Trader Joe's pickle seasoning, and those are perfect, so I am mostly content. :D

[spicebiter]

feel like shit just want her (my fave coffee blend) back

i tried the Bones coffee 'Army of Dark Chocolate' grounds because coyote pointed them out at the store but FUCK it's honestly terrible fucking coffee this is what i get for thinking the 'quirky' brand might not be that bad actually. It smells and tastes like chocolate coffee creamer i can't believe this shit man they literally just flavor the grounds??? You can get a dark chocolate-like taste from the right blend AS EVIDENCED BY THE FACT THAT THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT MY FAVE BLEND IS.

Thisis such a first world snobby problem lmao i'm not in an amazing mood today anyway so the disappointment and shit is just piggybacking on that. Since i got my fave grounds when i was visiting home and they're from a smaller shop i can only get them online so i thought i should find something i can get more readily but everything i've been trying has disappointed me in one way or another. This one is the worst for sure. The others have just been unimpressive but this one is genuinely nasty to me

[thequestionsofmychild]

Can I have a lolly?

The Challenges of Raising a Supertaster Child My son is a supertaster, he tastes every little ingredient in everything which is so overwhelming for him. This is why he sticks to plain, familiar things. We have a number of foods he eats and one of them is a spiral lolly from Aldi. He is (or was) currently having around 2-3 of these lollies a day. He absolutely loved them. Watching him eat one of…

[sadisopodhours]

I think someone unfollowed me for my arugula rant earlier