How can I reset my sense of taste after giving up artificial sweeteners?

After giving up artificial sweeteners, it is possible to recalibrate your taste buds if you gradually move towards more sour foods. Watch as psychotherapist Mike Dow, PsyD, explains how you can reset your sense of taste and how long it will take.

Transcript

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Taste recalibration will start to take place almost right away. After about three days, you should notice some sense of change in terms

00:08

of what you perceive to be as sweet or bitter or sour or even salty. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:19

After you give up artificial sweeteners, you can actually recalibrate your taste buds. So because artificial sweeteners are hundreds of times sweeter

00:27

than real sugar, that actually causes you to perceive a sort of new sense of what is normal on that sweet to bitter scale.

00:37

So once you give up artificial sweeteners, there's a gradual process that you can use. And if you move away baby step by baby step

00:44

at a time towards some foods that are maybe more sour or more bitter, for example, whole fruits,

00:51

vegetables, green tea, red wine, you're actually going to be recalibrating your taste buds away from that super sweet.

00:57

And what that does in your taste perception and also in your brain is that sweet foods are actually going to start to taste sweet to you again.

01:04

And that actually changes your daily behavioral pattern of what you want to eat. Taste recalibration will start to take place

01:11

almost right away. After about three days, you should notice some sense of change in terms of what you perceive to be as sweet or bitter or sour or even

01:20

salty. And we know that after about a month, some of those changes of taste recalibration are actually long lasting.