When food tastes like cardboard
News News blog
The sense of smell is mainly responsible for the perception of aromas, because the sense of taste can only perceive sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (umami is a Japanese loanword and describes the savoury taste of glutamate, as found in chicken soup, for example).
Many types of fruit are sweet and slightly sour, but you can easily tell the varieties apart when you have them in your mouth because different scents enter your nose through your throat.
Normally, you don't even notice this role of the nose, unless you have a cold. This is because the blocked nose means that no air exchange with fragrances is possible, and you get the impression that everything "tastes" like cardboard, is bland and monotonous. During the Corona pandemic, there was also the phenomenon that for some of those who fell ill, food still tasted like cardboard weeks later.
Up to five percent of the population suffer from a complete loss of the sense of smell, a so-called anosmia, and another 15 percent from a diminished sense of smell, a hyposmia. This means that every fifth person is affected by an olfactory disorder.
