Just posted to the Cookie thread over in Café Society, and although I do have favorite cookies and other sweets, I rarely if ever seek them out anymore. I can’t say for sure but I’m certain it’s been years since I had an Oreo or Nutter Butter. I remember liking cookies and cakes and candy and all that stuff when I was a kid (oddly enough my favorite ice cream was and still is vanilla, and although German Chocolate Cake is my all-time favorite I’ll rarely eat more than one or two pieces before it goes stale when I get one as a gift), but sometime around my early/mid 20’s I just… stopped. I never really liked chocolate in any form aside from Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, either.
I do still like sweet things when presented to me, but I’ll take at most one or two pieces/bites, whereas in bygone days I might do in the whole batch. Is there some reason why that might be?
And no, it has nothing to do with being health conscious, I’ll gladly pig out on other forms of carbs (pizza/pasta being my downfall) but I seem to have just completely lost my sweet tooth.
I’m 67, and have noticed that in the past decade or two, my taste buds have been more sensitive to any extreme flavors. Sweet foods are too sweet, salty foods are too salty, etc. Even mild salsa seems too spicy. A piece of cake is ok, but one bite of a candy bar and I have to set the rest of it aside. On the other hand some people go to the other extreme and lose their taste. When my father was my age he pretty much couldn’t taste anything.
All of this may possibly be a side-effect of medications, or combinations of medications.
Of course, some of that could well be that stuff simply used to be better. Case in point: Whenever I drink a Mexican Coke or “throwback” Pepsi, or the like, it’s pretty much exactly as I remember it being in the past. Not the syrupy muck that now passes for soda in the U.S.
And then there’s Hershey. People have been griping about their decline for over fifty years.
Hasn’t this been a meme for decades, that kids love super-sugary foods, while old codgers want tart and spicy, whatever wakes up their hard-of-hearing taste buds?
However, I think some people get more sweet in than they realize. If your iced tea is half sugar, your fries are covered in ketchup and your hamburger bun is sweet enough for a doughnut, who needs to end that meal with more sweet?
I lost my sweet tooth sometime in high school and would say I’m now sweet adverse. As a kid, I’d guzzle Kool-Aid and pop and eat cake and cookies when I could and scrutinize every inch of the candy aisle any time I had a buck in my pocket. Now, I’m fairly sensitive to sneaky sweets like pasta sauce and salad dressing and I basically never eat dessert. The really sweet stuff can turn my stomach and make my teeth tingle just thinking about it. Neon two-sided packages of NERDS just came to mind. Ugh, a whiff of watermelon flavored anything.
I will have a taste of probably anything under pretty light pressure and make the exceptions here and there. Longman and Eagle foie whoopie pies, I’m looking in your direction. I always have a bite of wedding cake.
These were one of the last candies that I’d crave. There’s one in my freezer just in case but it’s been there for a while.
Me too. White cake, sugar cookies, even milk chocolate just seem like a waste of calories.
Even so, I still want to end most meals with a taste of something sweet—just not too sweet. So I try to keep some good 60% cocoa chocolate chips around.