Taste is perhaps the most difficult of the 5 primary senses to describe and write about. First of all we must differentiate between taste and flavor. While taste is a chemical sense perceived by the receptor cells that make up taste buds, flavor is a mixture of elements. Flavor is the fusion of multiple senses derived from the tongue, the olfactory faculty (smell) and includes texture, temperature and, in the case of spicy food, even pain! Still, we don’t need to understand the science to appreciate the important roles that taste and flavor play in our lives!
As we did with sight, touch, sound and smell, let us now take a look at how we can use taste to improve our experience
Cultural Context
It is well known that Vegemite is mostly unpalatable outside of Australia. I grew up an Aussie, I had my fill of Vegemite sandwiches and I developed a tolerance for the flavor. However I’ve watched the pained grimaces of many visitors as they tucked into the Australian delicacy. Taste is highly personal and highly cultural, there are no rights or wrongs when it comes to what we find palatable. Some people have an abnormally high concentration of taste receptors and find even the blandest of foods highly stimulating. Others have extremely fussy pallets and so they require a great deal of variety in their meals in order for them to be consumable! Some of us are adventurous and willing to try anything, others (like me) prefer to play it safe. The central theme of this series on sense has been doing what you like regardless of outside forces. Sometimes we might feel pressured to eat a certain something because it has cultural, religious, ritual or traditional significance. I prefer the Jesus quote from the Gospel of Thomas:
(14) Jesus said to them, “If you fast, you will acquire a sin, and if you pray you will be condemned, and if you give alms (charity), it is evil that you will do unto your spirits. And when you go into any land and travel in the country places, when they receive you eat whatever they serve to you. Heal those among them who are sick. For, nothing that enters your mouth will defile you. Rather, it is precisely what comes out of your mouth that will defile you.” (emphasis mine.)
Of course it’s not always possible to tell your culture to get stuffed and eat what you are naturally drawn to and enjoy, especially when we are young and must eat whatever is fed to us. However once we gain a degree of independence there’s no reason to suffer through food that we find yucky or unenjoyable. It’s not my place to judge the customs of any culture, but as a general rule the body knows what is good for it. If something tastes awful to you, you probably shouldn’t be eating it. There will of course be cases where medicines will taste horrible and must be consumed, but on a daily or weekly basis, those who can afford it should be eating what they find enjoyable and pleasurable!
Dieting
Which leads to the inevitable questions “If I only eat what I like then I’ll end up terribly unhealthy”. That’s simply not true, sure you might like cakes and potato chips but there are a number of healthy, balanced meals that you like too. It’s all about balance. The concept of dieting is flawed for many reasons, the main one being that people tend not to enjoy dieting. It’s a chore, a hassle, a painful experience. This of course undermines and sabotages the chances of long term healing or weight loss occurring. It’s a fact that happiness and healing go hand in hand. And enjoying sensory delights (within reason, using common sense) most definitely helps to fill us with joy. Sondra Ray’s book
“The Only diet There Is” deals with the connection between personal fulfillment and weight. I tend to agree that if weight is an issue it’s best to focus on the causes, focus on our healing, rather than the symptom. Masochistic dieting tends to lead to a cycle of guilt, shame and bad habits. I say enjoy the food that hums to you, that resonates and speaks to you. Your body knows what it needs, and with healing our needs change. Draining the pleasure from our lives by adhering to depressing, boring diets most likely does more harm than good, and I’d say that any weight loss that is experienced would come right back as the root causes remain untouched.
I’m no expert on weight, eating disorders or the emotional issues underlying them. However I’ve learned through experience that most physical or behavioral symptoms are caused by, or at least exacerbated by, unresolved trauma and destructive thought processes. Tackling those through Somatic Experiencing (for trauma) and
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and
Affirmations (for thought processes) should be the priority for anyone unhappy with their weight. Dump the diets, enjoy the food that feels right for you at the time. We have these needs, these mechanisms, until we no longer require them. But while we have them, indulge them (within moderation).
In Conclusion
Health and happiness comes both from within and from the outside. There are plenty of rich but unfulfilled people who are surrounded by immense beauty – their every sense stimulated in the nicest ways possible – and yet they remain quite unhappy. So we know it’s not all about material wealth or sensory pleasure, in fact I’d say it definitely takes a back seat to our internal health. Our attitudes, beliefs, thought processes and level of trauma and embodiment are the real key. With strength and health in these areas we can see the good in just about any situation, we can enjoy the hard times as well as the easy. For those who have this kind of inner fortitude the external, sensory delights are a wonderful bonus. And for those dealing with great internal difficulty taking care of our senses can bring us the peace and satisfaction required to begin to heal those hurts.
The other important theme here is to always listen to the needs or your body. Wear the clothes you are comfortable in, use scents that do not irritate you, utilize color to bring peace and not frazzled energy, create a soundscape that promotes health and relaxation and consume food that does not cause you physical or emotional distress. No one can speak for you, as an adult you get to choose just how you wish to engage with your environment. We always have the power to make small but meaningful changes to our circumstance to create an atmosphere more conducive to our own happiness. Thanks for reading, I hope you’ve enjoyed this series on senses
Do you ever eat things you hate because you think you “should”? What would you prefer to be eating?
All the best!
Rohan.
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Rohan Healy is the author of “Greeks to Geeks: Practical Stoicism in the 21st Century”, “The 7 Things That Made Me Genuinely & Irreversibly Happy: And How They Can Do The Same For You” and Sci Fi Action/Adventure novel Gyaros: The Mice Eat Iron!
Click the book titles to visit their Amazon pages, read the reviews, and sample or purchase the books.
