# Hypersensitive taste buds?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypersensitive-taste-buds/648774
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 30, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypersensitive-taste-buds/648774 "2013-01-30T03:43:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypersensitive-taste-buds/648774/1 "2013-01-30T03:43:10Z")
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?
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypersensitive-taste-buds/648774/2 "2013-01-30T03:54:43Z")
Could he be a [Supertaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster)?
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### Author:  [@Surok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surok)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypersensitive-taste-buds/648774/3 "2013-01-30T10:41:57Z")
No idea, but you might find [this newspaper article](http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/jan/29/changing-tastes-food-and-aging) on how taste changes with age, and some of the physiological reasons for the change, interesting.
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### Author:  [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2013, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypersensitive-taste-buds/648774/4 "2013-01-30T14:34:24Z")
> [@Telemark](#):
>
> Could he be a [Supertaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster)?
I am a Super Taster!
Is there anything you want me to [del]lick[/del]taste?
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### Author:  [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypersensitive-taste-buds/648774/5 "2013-01-30T15:45:36Z")
It appears that I’m a non-taster.
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### Author:  [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypersensitive-taste-buds/648774/6 "2013-01-31T19:41:56Z")
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.