A curious thing happened today. I was eating Multi Grain Cheerios, and it tasted too sweet. “What’s the big deal?” you ask.
Well, for the past couple of months Multi Grain Cheerios and milk has been a staple breakfast or snack for me. Then about a month ago, I started mixing in original Cheerios to my bowl, to decrease the sugar content (original Cheerios has “only 1 gram of sugar a bowl,” as the jingle goes, Multi Grain Cheerios has 6). When I began, I did so half-heartedly. I resented myself for enforcing this lower sugar rule since it didn’t taste as sweet and delicious as it did with the Multi Grain Cheerios alone.
This morning, about a month after the transition, when I gave myself a small bit of Multi Grain Cheerios alone to finish up the remainder of my milk, I noticed that it tasted too sweet and I got up to add original Cheerios to it.
What happened?
I was experiencing a phenomenon that I taught about at a wellness workshop last month. That is, that our taste buds regenerate every 10-14 days, and therefore, our palate can acclimate to eating less sweet or less salty foods in 2-3 weeks.
That is how we can re-train our taste buds to enjoy the natural flavor of whole foods, instead of processed foods with added sugars.
Three weeks ago I missed eating Multi Grain Cheerios alone with milk. This morning, I preferred the less sweet scenario and wholeheartedly added original Cheerios to lighten the sweetness.