Chemotherapy... Is my tongue acting up? If my sense of taste is failing...

Hello, this is Nanaoto.
This time, I'd like to talk about the taste disorders that occur due to chemotherapy, and some ways to make food taste a little better.

I first learned about the existence of [taste disorders] about 25 years ago. It was when I first watched the 1998 movie version of the popular anime 'Detective Conan', titled 'The Fourteenth Target'.
There are scenes in the movie where characters can't taste anything even after drinking salt water, can't feel the heat even after licking chili powder, and can't even taste their favorite wine...

Up until then, I had imagined countless times 'what if I lost my sight' or 'what if I lost my hearing', but I had never once thought about 'what if I lost my sense of taste'.
But when I learned about taste disorders, I felt a bit of fear, thinking about what would happen if such a day ever came.
Nanaoto loves cooking more than anything.
If I were to develop a taste disorder, I wouldn't be able to make delicious food anymore. Because tasting would become meaningless.

While thinking things like that, I ended up suffering from a taste disorder as a side effect of chemotherapy, but the symptoms were different from what I had imagined.

・Cannot taste saltiness (after Docetaxel administration)
・Strongly feel an acrid taste (same as above)
・Cannot feel sweetness (same as above)
・Water tastes sweet (after Epirubicin/Endoxan administration)

It wasn't that I couldn't taste anything at all, but rather that I couldn't taste certain things. My sense of taste became unbalanced, which made cooking difficult.
As someone who loves to cook, I can make something reasonably tasty even without tasting it by seasoning by eye, but I was more worried about adding too much of the flavors I couldn't feel and ending up with an excessive intake. Especially salt.
So, I used less seasoning and tried other ways to make the food taste good.

That method is [aroma and flavor].
I read somewhere that the aroma you smell before eating is the 'aroma', and the flavor you feel after eating is the 'flavor'.
And apparently, taste is something you perceive with both your sense of taste and your sense of smell.

This was also many years ago, but there was a lecture on the TV program 'Sekai-ichi Uketai Jugyo' (The Most Useful School in the World) about how 'scent affects taste'.
The person appearing on the show ate pudding while holding their nose and said it was 'just something sweet', but as soon as they let go of their nose, they said, 'The scent hit me all at once and it felt like I was eating pudding'.

Remembering that story, I thought: if my sense of taste isn't working, I'll use my sense of smell!
I decided to give up on feeling deliciousness with my tongue for a while and try to enjoy it with my nose.

Instead of just using white dashi, I made a fragrant dashi stock with plenty of bonito flakes.
When eating salad, I bought a fragrant lemon and squeezed it right before eating to make the dressing.
I took sesame seeds that were already roasted and roasted them again in a roasting pan to bring out the aroma.
I usually drink non-flavored tea, but I tried flavored tea instead.
When drinking water, I would peel* it with lemon zest before drinking.

…With things like that, I tried to add a nice scent to my food, keeping 'delicious-smelling aroma' and 'delicious flavor' in mind.
The taste disorder itself heals in a few days, so I think I could have just endured it for a few days without going to such lengths, but I remembered the story mentioned above and tried it out as an experiment.

As a result, it wasn't enough to compensate for my distorted sense of taste, but eating while surrounded by the nice scents of food and drinks made me feel very good.
Come to think of it, even when my sense of taste is normal, I feel happy when I smell a good aroma.
It was a pretty fun experiment.
If you are undergoing chemotherapy and feel like 'my sense of taste is a bit strange... the taste is weird...', choosing things with a nice scent for your meals until the abnormality passes might just lift your spirits a little.

This time, I talked about the taste disorders that occur due to chemotherapy and some ways to make food taste a little better.
See you later.

*Peel: A technique used when making cocktails where you twist a thinly sliced citrus peel and spray the oils contained in the peel toward the glass to add fragrance.

●Postscript●

An image I made for the heading but ended up rejecting (bitter laugh)
Since I went to the trouble of making it, I'll post it here. I'll make it available from the 'Everyone's Photo Gallery'.