Reading time: 5 minutes
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people have experienced, at least for a few days, the loss (or partial alteration) of their sense of smell. This real invisible handicap can also be caused by nasal polyps, head trauma, or even certain cancers and neurodegenerative diseases.
Smell, 80% of taste
While these anosmias and parosmias deprive people affected by them of smells, they also deprive them of a good part of the taste of food. Indeed, three sensitivities participate in what we commonly call “taste”.
Taste, carried by the tongue and taste buds, allows us to perceive the flavor of a food, that is to say sweet, salty, sour, bitter flavors, as well as umami and fat. The trigeminal system allows us to determine whether a food is fresh (like mint), spicy (like chili or ginger), sparkling (like carbonated drinks), or irritating (like onion). Finally, retro-olfaction, closely linked to the sense of smell, allows us to distinguish different aromas and helps, for example, to tell the difference between an apple and a pear. To this must be added the visual, tactile, thermal and auditory information that completes the perception of the food consumed.
So, being deprived of smell means being deprived of aromas and thus of nearly 80% of the sensory experience linked to tasting. On the forum of the association Anosmie.org, Jean-Michel Maillard, its founding president himself suffering from anosmia due to trauma, testifies: “I still have sweet, salty, sour, bitter. On the other hand, I no longer have the ability to detect the difference between two chocolates, two cheeses (except for different consistencies), hot water or mint tea, flavored water or still water, etc. I could give you dozens of examples. More generally, we eat sweet, salty, sour cardboard… Meals therefore become a test, a challenge to pleasure. This is when you discover that the meal was above all a search for pleasure and that it becomes optional.”
It is easy to understand why some people with anosmia lose or gain weight to the point of endangering their health, develop eating disorders, withdraw socially and avoid meals with friends and family. It is also not uncommon for them, deprived of their sense of smell and therefore of a good part of their sense of taste, to show signs of depression.
Keep your nose in the pot
Therefore, the challenge for people who suffer from anosmia is to find a way to maintain some pleasure at the table. This must be a real issue when the sense of smell is lacking. Indeed, apart from cases where medication or surgery provide a real solution – particularly in the case of nasal polyps – and even if olfactory rehabilitation can be a valuable aid in recovering all or part of the sense of smell, once it is altered, it is difficult to know when and if we will recover it.
So what to do? Above all, we must not resign ourselves to eating only to feed ourselves. “The worst thing to do would be to further impoverish one’s sphere of taste. That would only increase the symptoms and make the experience worse.”explains Hirac Gurden, director of research in neuroscience at the CNRS and author of Smell – How smells affect our brain (Les Arènes). He recommends, in parallel with a medical course and olfactory rehabilitation, to enrich one’s sensory experience and to continue to share meals with loved ones. This can be beneficial in several ways.
Thus, maintaining taste stimuli can contribute to the recovery of the sense of smell and/or to preserving what remains of it. Moustafa Bensafi, CNRS research director at the Centre for Research in Neurosciences of Lyon 1 (CNRL, Neuropop team), specifies that “There is no scientific study that can confirm that keeping your “nose in the pot” while continuing to stimulate your olfactory system allows you to better recover your sense of smell.. He explains, however, that we can hope to count on a certain plasticity of this system so that it regenerates itself. The idea is then to pay close attention to what we taste, to call upon our other senses as well as our memories.
Cultivate your senses
At the same time, paying attention to one’s taste sensations allows one to develop taste and the trigeminal system and learn to find pleasure in the experiences they offer. It is also a way of not completely cutting oneself off from the social dimension of food, and thus of thwarting the risk of both isolation and depression.
People affected by anosmia may try to play with textures – crunchy, crispy, soft, rubbery –, spices, hot, fat, hot, cold, in order to find a certain satisfaction in eating. «I have gotten into the habit of tasting, tasting, tasting everything I can in search of the slightest pleasure, says Jean-Michel Maillard. […] For me, crème brûlée is cold on the inside, hot on top, sugar and crunch in the mouth. It’s close to perfection despite the absence of caramel or vanilla flavors.…»
Obviously, in seeking taste pleasure, there is a risk of falling into dietary imbalance.
Claire Fanchini, a member of the board of directors of Anosmie.org and anosmic since a trauma, agrees: “I learned to seek out diversity, to seek out extraordinary and interesting textures. For example, I particularly appreciate sticky rice, ravioli or mochis for their rubbery texture. I also like granola because it is crunchy.»
She explains that she now has a small trolley with her at the table with different spices and condiments, pesto, soy sauce and pickles that allow her to give a little relief to what she eats. She also advises eating hot rather than cold, in order to perceive as much information as possible.
Individualization and balance
In this approach which consists of diversifying one’s diet and moving towards sensations which provide taste pleasure or, at the very least, a certain satisfaction, Moustafa Bensafi invites us to work on an individual scale, that is to say at “take into account what the anosmic person likes or doesn’t like, what they can or cannot tolerate…”
“I don’t like sweet things, it’s not something I naturally gravitate towards and I don’t force myself”illustrates Claire Fanchini, who reports eating more fat and salt in her dishes since her sense of smell started failing her –“I wouldn’t recommend it”she nevertheless emphasizes, being particularly aware of the risks of hypertension linked to a diet that is too salty.
Because, obviously, in seeking taste pleasure, the risk is to fall into dietary imbalance. This is the reason why the young woman invites those concerned to seek advice from a dietician in order to reconcile food satisfaction and nutritional balance.
For his part, Hirac Gurden insists on the need to maintain dietary diversity in order not to create deficiencies and to meet nutrient and micronutrient needs. However, he specifies that at present, no dietary supplement or food as such has shown any benefit in the recovery of the sense of smell.
The neuroscientist concludes with a final piece of advice for people with anosmia: “You should not hesitate to talk about it to your loved ones, your friends, your colleagues. Anosmia is a handicap and those affected need recognition.” At the same time, Claire Fanchini invites relatives to “not to make comments about what we eat, and not to advise us to change our diet or to do a detox…”
