When you’re struggling to eat because you can’t smell or taste, or what you can smell is disgusting, eating well can be a real challenge. Dr Duika Burges Watson, founder of the Altered Eating Network, offers some tried and tested advice:
1. Focus on other senses to fill the gap
All five of our senses are used when we eat: taste, sight, sound, feel and of course, smell. It’s the sensory experience that can make eating so pleasurable. If you’re missing smell or taste, make an effort to focus on the other senses to compensate for the gap. Use the Sensory Star to guide your eating experience.
Focus on how your food looks, sounds and feels. Really notice what you can taste: salt? sweetness?
2. Bland and Bold
People with smell disorders, particularly parosmia, can react very strongly to the smallest whiff of something. Bland foods are often easier to consume in this heightened state. Tofu and mushrooms are frequently reported to be palatable when other things may have you retching.
Take the heat out of what you eat. Aroma molecules are stimulated by heat so cool it down and you will have less molecules reaching your olfactory receptors. A cold jacket potato may be much more appealing than eating it hot. Salads are also easier for many to manage.
3. Experiment
It’s agreed that there is no one set of food that everyone can tolerate, you have to experiment to find what works for you. Include palate cleansers in your experiments, they can sometimes help clear or settle things when the smell becomes too much. Lemon juice, citrus sorbet, mint and cinnamon can help. Other people have found cucumber, rosemary, bay leaf or olives can calm things down. Water is also helpful, but you won’t agree if you are one of the unlucky 15 percent that find the smell of water intolerable. See our item on When Water is Disgusting for more information.
Don’t be shy when it comes to experimenting. Channel the genius of chefs like Heston Blumenthal or Grant Achatz and do something differently. Shavings of frozen salad might be your new signature dish.
4. Focus on texture
When you don’t have the aroma to satisfy you, different textures might fill the gap. Try and get a variety of crunch, snap, silk and chomp into your menu. When you start to think about the mouth feel, some of those familiar or pleasurable sensations can hit the spot.
5. If you can’t face food, use nutritional supplements
For some people, there are days when eating seems impossible. However the consequences of not eating are serious and the resulting lack of energy will make it even harder to cope. When things are really bad, consider something like Huel, a nutritionally complete food. Protein and meal replacement shakes are another alternative. They don’t always have to be liquid: frozen shakes can be a comfort.
If you find yourself unable to eat for more than a few days, please consult your doctor or nutritionist.
The bottom line: be kind to yourself
There is no getting around it, learning to live with altered eating is tough. Experimenting is time-consuming and tiring, the anxiety around what to eat next and fears it will always be this way take their toll. Take time to take a break and be kind to yourself. Recovery may be slow and it is likely that you won’t smell and taste things in the same way you did before, but you won’t always feel like this. The experience of countless people shows that in smell recovery, time really is the greatest healer.
Click through for more information about the Altered Eating Network
Nerves take time to heal. Depending on the damage, this could be two months or it could be two years, or even longer. No one can predict how long recovery will take or how completely you will recover. But we do have evidence that smell training helps.
Doctors recommend that you commit to smell training for a minimum of four months, but training longer, with variation in the scents used, will bring greater benefit.
Olfactory nerves are the wiring between the nose and the brain. They can get damaged by something as ordinary as a cold, or as traumatic as a knock to the head. The good news is that olfactory nerves repair themselves.
With any injury, recovery can take time but smell training can help speed up the process. Just like a broken leg needs physiotherapy to build up strength, so does your nose. Smell training is physiotherapy for your nose.
Everyday, take the four fragrances and sniff each in turn. Just lots of short, light, little sniffs - we call them bunny sniffs - just taking air into your nose. Spend about 20 seconds on each smell.
You may not see an improvement for many weeks, so it’s helpful to keep a note of how you get on so you can see the progress, however small.
Progress might also be the way you feel about your sense of smell. Smell and emotions are closely linked and people living without a sense of smell are more likely to experience low mood or depression.
No, you can assemble your own kit and any fragrance will do. AbScent’s Original Smell Training Kit has been formulated to replicate the aromas used in the original scientific studies into the effectiveness of smell training. Lemon, Rose, Eucalyptus and Clove were the fragrances selected for the trial and we have blended those four fragrances in a way that will remain stable over time.
All proceeds from AbScent’s Original Smell Training Kit go straight back to the charity to help people living with smell disorders.
No, any fragrance will do. There is no evidence that essential oils are more effective than other fragrances. Even herbs or spices from your kitchen can be used for smell training. Remember, we don’t use the scents because there is something special about them. We use them to stimulate your sense of smell.
It’s helpful to have a smell that you know you can rely on to remain stable over several months. That way you know the changes are in what you can smell, rather than changes in the fragrance.
If your olfactory nerves have been damaged, it’s possible that you won’t go back to smelling things as you did before. Thinking about the leg injury again, imagine having a scar where you’ve hurt yourself. . Smell training can help you heal, even if your sense of smell does not recover 100%.
The earlier you start training the better. You may be concerned that you can’t smell anything at all when you go to sniff your jars of scent. Remember that smell training is not only about the sniff. It’s the thinking about the smell that is also part of the exercise. You’ll be engaging everything about your sense of smell from the tip of your nose up into the part of the brain that stores your memories and emotions.
If you constantly experience an unpleasant smell, or your favourite food suddenly smells like burnt rubber, you could be experiencing parosmia. This is a natural part of the recovery process as the nerves regenerate, but can last several weeks or be more persistent. Smell training will not help parosmia specifically, but it helps the regeneration process and could help you get back to smelling things normally more quickly. You can find out more about parosmia here.
Yes, Covid-19 is a viral infection and it’s common for people to lose their sense of smell following a virus. Studies on patients before Covid-19 have shown that smell training helps recovery. Watch our short video for more information.
In some cases, yes. If your head injury is less severe then it may help you. Starting as soon as possible after your injury gives you the best chance of recovery, but people who have not started smell training until some years later have also benefited. Smell training won’t hurt and your time investment is low, so everyone should be encouraged to give it a chance.
Studies have shown that 30 percent of people above the age of 75 have little or no sense of smell. Like all our physical abilities, what we don’t use, we lose. Smell training in older people has been shown to improve other abilities such as processing information and mental agility. A study also showed that smell training in a group of older people improved mood.
Nerves take time to heal. Depending on the damage, this could be two months or it could be two years, or even longer. No one can predict how long recovery will take or how completely you will recover. But we do have evidence that smell training helps.
Doctors recommend that you commit to smell training for a minimum of four months, but training longer, with variation in the scents used, will bring greater benefit.
Olfactory nerves are the wiring between the nose and the brain. They can get damaged by something as ordinary as a cold, or as traumatic as a knock to the head. The good news is that olfactory nerves repair themselves.
With any injury, recovery can take time but smell training can help speed up the process. Just like a broken leg needs physiotherapy to build up strength, so does your nose. Smell training is physiotherapy for your nose.
Everyday, take the four fragrances and sniff each in turn. Just lots of short, light, little sniffs - we call them bunny sniffs - just taking air into your nose. Spend about 20 seconds on each smell.
You may not see an improvement for many weeks, so it’s helpful to keep a note of how you get on so you can see the progress, however small.
Progress might also be the way you feel about your sense of smell. Smell and emotions are closely linked and people living without a sense of smell are more likely to experience low mood or depression.
No, you can assemble your own kit and any fragrance will do. AbScent’s Original Smell Training Kit has been formulated to replicate the aromas used in the original scientific studies into the effectiveness of smell training. Lemon, Rose, Eucalyptus and Clove were the fragrances selected for the trial and we have blended those four fragrances in a way that will remain stable over time.
All proceeds from AbScent’s Original Smell Training Kit go straight back to the charity to help people living with smell disorders.
No, any fragrance will do. There is no evidence that essential oils are more effective than other fragrances. Even herbs or spices from your kitchen can be used for smell training. Remember, we don’t use the scents because there is something special about them. We use them to stimulate your sense of smell.
It’s helpful to have a smell that you know you can rely on to remain stable over several months. That way you know the changes are in what you can smell, rather than changes in the fragrance.
If your olfactory nerves have been damaged, it’s possible that you won’t go back to smelling things as you did before. Thinking about the leg injury again, imagine having a scar where you’ve hurt yourself. . Smell training can help you heal, even if your sense of smell does not recover 100%.
The earlier you start training the better. You may be concerned that you can’t smell anything at all when you go to sniff your jars of scent. Remember that smell training is not only about the sniff. It’s the thinking about the smell that is also part of the exercise. You’ll be engaging everything about your sense of smell from the tip of your nose up into the part of the brain that stores your memories and emotions.
If you constantly experience an unpleasant smell, or your favourite food suddenly smells like burnt rubber, you could be experiencing parosmia. This is a natural part of the recovery process as the nerves regenerate, but can last several weeks or be more persistent. Smell training will not help parosmia specifically, but it helps the regeneration process and could help you get back to smelling things normally more quickly. You can find out more about parosmia here.
Yes, Covid-19 is a viral infection and it’s common for people to lose their sense of smell following a virus. Studies on patients before Covid-19 have shown that smell training helps recovery. Watch our short video for more information.
In some cases, yes. If your head injury is less severe then it may help you. Starting as soon as possible after your injury gives you the best chance of recovery, but people who have not started smell training until some years later have also benefited. Smell training won’t hurt and your time investment is low, so everyone should be encouraged to give it a chance.
Studies have shown that 30 percent of people above the age of 75 have little or no sense of smell. Like all our physical abilities, what we don’t use, we lose. Smell training in older people has been shown to improve other abilities such as processing information and mental agility. A study also showed that smell training in a group of older people improved mood.