Sad COVID Boy Hank Green Eats Foods He Hates but Can't Taste
July 8, 2022 5:29 PM   Subscribe

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- loup



 
This is excellent - I look forwards to my eventually liking blue cheese, olives, etc etc when I finally get covid .... hopefully just for a while
posted by mbo at 5:38 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]


Ooh, now I want to try no-smell blue cheese!
posted by meese at 5:54 PM on July 8, 2022


"🧀 man, burning out his nose up here alone"
posted by clavdivs at 6:08 PM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]


What a great channel. Here's the breakdown on why you're not eating as much plastic as you've recently been told.
posted by Don Pepino at 6:11 PM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]


As someone who's mostly anosmic, this is a visit to my everyday. *sigh*
posted by Inkslinger at 6:53 PM on July 8, 2022 [8 favorites]


Ooh, now I want to try no-smell blue cheese!

My wife can’t stand the smell of pecorino romano. Like it’s one of the few things she absolutely will not abide.

She took a great big whiff of it and even ate some while she had COVID. It was magical.

Still do not recommend having COVID though.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:43 PM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]


I laughed and wish I had thought to try this when I had covid. Instead I was just surprised when I couldn’t smell anything and ran around the house smelling EVERYTHING that had a strong smell exclaiming “this is so weird!” Because my nose was not congested at all.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 7:55 PM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]


If I had oodles of money I'd be tempted to send Mr. Green a high-quality reproduction of The Vinegar Tasters.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:56 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]


How much of this is a placebo effect, though? He's eating foods that he decided he didn't like, maybe quite a while ago, and possibly hasn't eaten for years. He expects them to be different. Is he not primed to enjoy some of them now?

The one that jumps out at me is the black licorice. Some high-quality black licorice just tastes surprisingly pleasant, different from your run-of-the-mill stuff.
posted by anhedonic at 7:58 PM on July 8, 2022 [5 favorites]


When I had COVID, I tried eating a raw onion like an apple. In the interest of science.

Reader, it did not go as planned.
posted by xthlc at 8:35 PM on July 8, 2022 [32 favorites]


(raw onions are surprisingly spicy)
posted by xthlc at 8:36 PM on July 8, 2022 [8 favorites]


I did not lose my sense of smell or taste with my case last week. Which was one bright spot when it came to staying fed. ...However - my go-to cough remedy is Buckley's, and I might have appreciated a lost of taste for that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:27 AM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


I lost my sense of smell and taste for two years due to depression. Then with the help of a skilled therapist regained them in 2015. Then in December 2019, I lost my sense of smell and taste due to a viral ear infection. You do not have any appetite nor do you feel full no matter how much you eat. Since I love to eat, cook and drink wine, I am once again depressed and in therapy. I have been smell training with essential oils. I could not watch the whole video since this person is so chipper about his anosmia. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. It is not remotely fun or an adventure. It is like losing a part of one's soul. I am 125% Italian so food was an essential part of my life. The worst part of the day is the dinner hour around 5 pm.
posted by DJZouke at 5:45 AM on July 9, 2022 [8 favorites]


(raw onions are surprisingly spicy)
I will happily savor eating a Walla Walla Sweet like an apple, any day, COVID or not. <3
posted by xedrik at 7:26 AM on July 9, 2022


I accidentally had a control meal during covid that helped me pinpoint the time when I (thankfully briefly) lost my sense of taste & smell. The day before he got sick (about three days into my infection), my partner made me some tasty soup with peas and potatoes and some other green stuff, coconut milk, plus hints of mint & parsley. I ate it for lunch that day and it was delicious. Then I ate it again for dinner and it was just a hot bowl of texture. It was fascinating to go into the second meal with a taste memory of the soup from mere hours earlier and realise that I couldn't actually taste it.

I had a related experience recently where I ate a coconut-based vegan chocolate orange dessert pot for the second time ever, the first time having been during the period where I couldn't smell or taste real well. It wasn't as good this time - far too coconutty in a way that I'd been 100% unable to perceive the first time I ate it. "Don't buy four of a thing that you only ever ate once when you couldn't taste anything" is a life lesson to hang onto, perhaps. I still have three left.
posted by terretu at 7:42 AM on July 9, 2022 [6 favorites]


It was a fun video, but losing ones' sense of smell is not fun at all.
I'd say the worst part wasn't when it was all gone, it was in a way fascinating to realize how much of my eating was driven by a desire to taste and smell and enjoy, rather than actual appetite. I almost stopped eating entirely. But when the sense of smell returned, it returned in drops and drizzles, and still today, nothing tastes or smells like normal. Combinations that were once delicious are now obnoxious. Apropos the video, my favorite comfort food used to be pasta alla gorgonzola. Now I can't bother, it tastes of nothing and the texture can't carry me through.
Texture has become all important to me. But I have to be careful that I don't include something that was once delicious and fragrant with a hint of bitterness, but which is today just bitter, because all the fragrant notes have gone. Legumes, once something I ate almost daily, have exactly that problem.
When I eat fatty fish like salmon or mackerel, which I once loved, I can't taste the finer notes at all, so it's just like if I opened one of those omega 3 capsules and had that for dinner. Rather vile, I'd say.
And obviously I can't cook. I can cook stuff I have cooked for decades, where I don't need to taste. But anything that is the tiniest bit experimental is off limits. My kids have learnt to be completely honest when I ask them, because it isn't about me asking for compliments, but about me trying to figure out how far I am on this journey.

And yeah, the fatigue. It's overwhelming, and it is so hard for people to understand. + I have joint pains and stomach pains. In short, avoid COVID if you can. Take it seriously. I'm at month four.
posted by mumimor at 8:52 AM on July 9, 2022 [9 favorites]


This was great. I'm sorry he's going through that long covid cycle, but way to find even the hint of a silver lining
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:58 AM on July 9, 2022


I might have appreciated a lost of taste for that.

Uh what? That's the best part of Buckley's [as I write that I realise that I may have a Buckley's problem... and I do buy it by the dozen from Costco] . You might try Lambert's Syrup, which is more pine tar flavoured.
posted by Ashwagandha at 2:21 PM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


when I had it, I remembered the oddest thing my dad did as a kid.
snort pepper.

two reasons, it's clears sinuses from barn hay/dust. 1940s equivalent of "rush'

and yes, I did.
Burns
posted by clavdivs at 2:44 PM on July 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


He kept referring to "John" (who seemed to be not only off-camera but not actually around at all) and then I figured he's referring to the guy who wrote The Fault in Our Stars and other YA books. I guess John Green is good at what he does, but I'm glad I had Vonnegut and Brautigan around when I was a teen. These guys are so.... middle-American.

But I do hope Hank can finally shake the covid. And eat whatever you want.
posted by morspin at 10:16 PM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


> You might try Lambert's Syrup, which is more pine tar flavoured.

I like that you phrase that as if it was a positive. Relative to Buckleys it may be, that camphor taste is certainly something else...
posted by barc0001 at 11:48 PM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


I did finally lose my sense of smell/taste and you don’t actually lose your sense of taste. You’ve got your sour, bitter, sweet, salty, umami, but you lose all of the complexity of the nose.

This is not how it worked for me. I lost all sense of taste and smell altogether. I could not detect sweet, sour, salt, umami, anything at all for nearly a week. Things still aren't fully back to normal (still cannot really taste bitterness, which makes tea and coffee a lot more boring) but when it was fully going, fuck me. I almost stopped eating altogether. Everything was unpleasant because it was literally tasteless. You become hyper aware of texture because there is nothing else.

If I developed that as a permanent condition, I don't think I'd last long. I don't know if I'd waste away before the despair led me to end it. I am firmly in camp "live to eat" and it removed one of the most fundamental and foundational joys in life. It turns out that taste and smell might be the senses I'm just attached to.
posted by Dysk at 1:55 AM on July 10, 2022 [5 favorites]


I'm glad I had Vonnegut and Brautigan around when I was a teen. These guys are so.... middle-American.

Never change, Metafilter. The Greens originally hail from Florida, and... you know where Kurt Vonnegut is from, right?
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 2:28 AM on July 10, 2022 [9 favorites]


When I had COVID, I tried eating a raw onion like an apple. In the interest of science.

Reader, it did not go as planned.


My mother used to eat raw onions with salt on the regular. She'd just sit on the couch watching her soaps or reading a book and eat an entire onion salting each bite. She once said to my wife "None of my boys will eat onion. I have no idea what I did wrong".

Reader, it was her breath. Between that and her chain smoking I probably could have used some anosmia as child.
posted by srboisvert at 3:09 AM on July 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


I didn't completely lose my sense of taste when I had Covid. Like, food still tasted like something, just not what it was supposed to taste like. Everything tasted off and weird and it was horrible. There were three or four things that tasted almost like they were supposed to, like scrambled eggs; enough that I could eat and not be totally miserable. It almost felt like there was felt or film on my tongue. Even my toothpaste tasted weird and wrong. And some things still don't taste right. Like my toothpaste.

It's really awful and depressing and one day after trying something I had previously loved but now couldn't taste, I just sat and cried. It's really hard to describe how much losing taste affects your mood.
posted by cooker girl at 6:42 AM on July 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


I didn't lose my sense of taste or smell... but I had wondered if I had what it would have changed about cilantro... That might have been one of the only silver linings for me...
posted by cirhosis at 8:09 AM on July 10, 2022


really amazing that every single one of these foods are like basically my favorite foods. Pickles, black (real!) licorice, blue cheese, anchovies (mmm! on toast!!!), olives, etc. Can't imagine how much it would suck to lose my sense of smell and not be able to taste them the way they are. Here's to not getting COVID!
posted by dis_integration at 9:25 AM on July 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


I completely lost my sense of taste but I maintained a moderate sense of smell to the point where I now call BS on the “sense of smell is a very important part of the sense of taste.”
posted by MorgansAmoebas at 10:07 AM on July 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


It's really awful and depressing and one day after trying something I had previously loved but now couldn't taste, I just sat and cried. It's really hard to describe how much losing taste affects your mood.

I didn’t cry, but this is spot on.
posted by MorgansAmoebas at 10:10 AM on July 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


I lost everything but bitter when I had Covid.
The most boring romaine salad became a pile of foul bitterness. It was so weird.

Then my kid made me the spiciest type of buldak ramen with some extra hon dashi. A brief whiff of smokiness and about 2 seconds of heat, then nothing but texture.
Does Covid affect capsaicin receptors?
posted by Seamus at 12:55 PM on July 10, 2022


Like, food still tasted like something, just not what it was supposed to taste like. Everything tasted off and weird and it was horrible. There were three or four things that tasted almost like they were supposed to, like scrambled eggs; enough that I could eat and not be totally miserable. It almost felt like there was felt or film on my tongue.

Currently coping with this, and hating it. Really hoping things will go back to normal because right now it's tough to feel anything but dread about eating or drinking. I can still smell everything, there's still a flavor to everything, but it's off, it's scrambled, it's fighting its way through something. Early this morning, taking a big sip of water was like hitting a spinner wheel. My tongue and my brain could not at all agree on what flavor to report back with, and tried a bunch of wrong ones.

Right now I'm having some coffee, and it's close but its not quite right. Likewise the protein shake I'm having with it. It tastes of something, that something is close to my memory of this flavor, but it is not this flavor. But I'm into the protein shakes and bars right now, because they're over quickly. If I could take all my meals as a pill until I'm on the other side of this, that would probably be ideal.

It's really awful and depressing and one day after trying something I had previously loved but now couldn't taste, I just sat and cried. It's really hard to describe how much losing taste affects your mood.

A slice of carrot cake that tasted like soap more than anything. I could make out the raisins, more or less, but otherwise it was mostly a wedge of texture. Felt the sugar hit my blood without having tasted any of the sweetness. Became a physical chore to consume, so I stopped.
posted by EatTheWeek at 1:08 PM on July 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


@MorgansAmoebas "I completely lost my sense of taste but I maintained a moderate sense of smell to the point where I now call BS on the “sense of smell is a very important part of the sense of taste.”
It is widely acknowledged that our sense of smell is 80% of our sense of taste. Since I have had anosmia twice I have done a lot of reading on the condition. I am no authority but I question your conclusion.
posted by DJZouke at 5:04 AM on July 11, 2022


EatTheWeek, for me, it took about three weeks for things to start to taste somewhat normal. I'd say week six was the end point? But there are some things that still don't taste "right," although they don't taste "wrong," if that makes sense; I had Covid in late January of this year.

AND YES TO WATER. OMG. It didn't taste like water!!!! WTH!
posted by cooker girl at 7:18 AM on July 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


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