Hypersensitive taste buds?

Factual Questions
1

My son has always been a picky eater. At first that’s all I thought there was to it - he was just another picky eater. He’s sixteen now and I’ve come to think that maybe there’s an actual medical condition behind this. He seems to just taste more than most. It’s like his taste buds register on a scale that “goes all the way to eleven”. I imagine that people’s sense of taste follows a bell curve like everything else, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he is just at the far right on the curve. In fact I wonder if “picky eaters” are nothing more that people at the far right of the curve.

Does anybody know anything about this? Is there a test for taste sensitivity?

2

Could he be a Supertaster?

3

No idea, but you might find this newspaper article on how taste changes with age, and some of the physiological reasons for the change, interesting.

4

I am a Super Taster!
Is there anything you want me to [del]lick[/del]taste?

5

It appears that I’m a non-taster.

6

My mother is super sensitive; she has to have everything bland. Can’t eat the salsa in a Mexican restaurant, always gets Sweet and Sour Chicken from the Chinese place.

It’s odd as well, considering she was a smoker for most of her life, and that is supposed to kill people’s sense of taste.