{"id":42486,"date":"2021-10-19T14:03:23","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T20:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=42486"},"modified":"2025-03-07T11:24:38","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T18:24:38","slug":"how-to-regain-sense-of-taste-and-smell-after-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-to-regain-sense-of-taste-and-smell-after-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"How to regain your sense of taste and smell after COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Chef
Cooks and people who love to eat can’t bear to live without their senses of taste and smell. If you lose taste and smell after a bout with COVID-19, try these methods to get them back. Photo: Getty Images.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We\u2019re told that SARS-CoV-2, like its cousin the common cold virus, will be with us for a long time (forever?) How odd that it remains the \u201cnew\u201d coronavirus, two years on.<\/p>\n

And that means that, for certain persons, its symptoms will occur for a long time, too. For the cook, the most telling symptom is the way COVID-19 sometimes wipes out a person\u2019s sense of taste or smell, sometimes both.<\/p>\n

This came home to me because, over the past two years, both my son, Colin, and one of his closest friends, Dan Murray, a Denver small business owner, both suffered total losses to their senses of smell and taste. In both cases, they also attempted to \u201cretrain\u201d those senses by using strongly-flavored and -scented food.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter about two weeks,\u201d said Murray, \u201cI got back around 25 percent. In probably six weeks, 80 percent. At first, all I could feel on my tongue was texture\u2014no taste. It was like wearing a surgical glove on my tongue.\u201d
\n

Read other great articles and recipes<\/a> by Bill St. John. <\/div>\n

\u201cI did two things,\u201d said Murray. \u201cI ate (the candy) Hot Tamales and, every morning for weeks, I went to an organic juice shop near work and got a shot of their ginger-apple cider vinegar juice. It was daily training.\u201d He used it as a test, he said, \u201cuntil I made a \u2018bitter beer face,\u2019 a kind of \u2018squinty tart face.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Colin, who quarantined in a hotel room in Philadelphia for more than a week, just happened to purchase \u201ca loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter at a nearby CVS,\u201d he said. \u201cI stuck my nose in the jar all the time to see if I could smell something. In time, it got faint, like someone eating peanuts 10 rows behind you at a ballgame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colin\u2019s taste wasn\u2019t merely gone \u201cfor a good ten days\u201d; it also was skewed when it crawled back. \u201cA Miller Lite at the airport tasted really bad,\u201d he said, \u201cacrid, just bitterness and alcohol; no malt, no floral notes. It wasn\u2019t beer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it possible to ‘retrain’ your nose and get back your sense of taste and smell after COVID-19?<\/h2>\n

Dr. Jennifer Reavis Decker at the UCHealth Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic, has helped her patients, some of whom are children, to retrain their sense of smell by using strongly-scented essential oils (especially the four of citrus, floral, fruit and spice). It is called \u201colfactory retraining.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sense of smell is closely linked to memory,\u201d she says, \u201cespecially pleasant memories.\u201d That\u2019s why using peanut butter or peppermint candy with children makes more sense than something like the odor of clove or jasmine, of which they typically have little memory or, surely, pleasant ones.<\/p>\n

Decker also reminds that many smells are perceived via \u201cthe rear nasal pharynx, after a swallow\u201d when the tongue \u201clifts\u201d air into that passage and onto the olfactory globe where we smell smells. So, attend to the memories that that may evoke for you if you retrain your sense of smell (and the sense of taste that goes with it) after losing it.<\/p>\n

Decker also points out two important considerations: first, that \u201cyour best shot at improving your sense of smell is during the first 6 weeks after losing it,\u201d and that, second, \u201cthe best way to avoid losing your sense of smell (to COVID-19) is to get vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cookie recipe here is peanut buttery but not overly sweet, so not to distract the palate from tasting sweetness over the nut butter\u2019s aroma. The ginger-based \u201cshot\u201d is powerfully aromatic and flavorful. When swallowing, be sure to push some air up through the rear nasal cavity so that you get a strong smell of it, too.<\/p>\n

Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Healthy
Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies and a Ginger Lemon Apple Cider Vinegar Shot can help people regain their sense of smell or taste after a bout with COVID-19. Photo by Bill St. John.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From thefirstyearblog.com. Makes 8-12 depending on size. Although the recipe states that \u201cthe cookies won\u2019t spread much,\u201d they do.<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/strong><\/h3>\n

1 cup quick-cooking oats<\/p>\n

3\/4 cup peanut butter<\/p>\n

1 teaspoon baking soda<\/p>\n

1\/8 teaspoon salt<\/p>\n

1 teaspoon vanilla extract<\/p>\n

1\/4 cup honey<\/p>\n

1 egg<\/p>\n

Directions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the oats in a blender or food processor and pulverize for 30 seconds to make oat flour.\u00a0In a large mixing bowl, combine the oat flour, peanut butter, baking soda, salt, vanilla, honey and egg. Use a hand mixer (or heavy wooden spoon) to combine; the mixture will be thick.<\/p>\n

Scoop dough balls of about 1 1\/2 tablespoons in volume and place on a silicone- or parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Press the dough balls down using the palm of your hand. Create a crisscross pattern on the top of each cookie by pressing a fork into the dough. If the fork sticks to the dough, wipe the fork on a paper towel sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Because the cookies won\u2019t spread much, you can place them closer together and probably fit all the dough on one baking sheet.<\/p>\n

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. The cookies will be soft and tender when they come out of the oven; allow them to cool and firm up on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.<\/p>\n

Store the cookies in an airtight container on the counter for up to 3 days. These cookies can also be frozen. Wrap them in bundles of 3-4 cookies in plastic wrap then place inside a zippered plastic bag and place in the freezer.<\/p>\n

Ginger-Lemon-Apple Cider Vinegar Shots<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A very healthy tonic, but not for the faint of heart. Makes about 12 ounces (1 1\/2 cups).<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/strong><\/h3>\n

8 ounces fresh ginger root<\/p>\n

1 large lemon, zested and juiced<\/p>\n

2\/3 cup apple cider vinegar<\/p>\n

1 tablespoon honey<\/p>\n

1\/8 teaspoon fine sea or kosher salt<\/p>\n

Directions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Peel the ginger: Using a dull-edged spoon or knife, scrape and rub away the skin on the ginger, getting into the nooks and crannies as best you can. Chop the ginger into 10-12 pieces and pulse, then pulverize, them in a food processor, scraping down the bowl from time to time, until the ginger is nearly a paste.<\/p>\n

Add the zest and juice from the lemon, the vinegar, honey and salt and process until the mixture is a thick slurry. Spoon the amount you desire into a small glass and drink down in one \u201cshot.\u201d Stores in the refrigerator for up to 10 days.<\/p>\n

This story first appeared in The Denver Post.\u00a0<\/em>Reach Bill St. John at billstjohn@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re told that SARS-CoV-2, like its cousin the common cold virus, will be with us for a long time (forever?) How odd that it remains the \u201cnew\u201d coronavirus, two years on. And that means that, for certain persons, its symptoms will occur for a long time, too. For the cook, the most telling symptom is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2197,"featured_media":42506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4799,2366,9187,4415],"class_list":["post-42486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living","tag-bill-st-john","tag-healthy-recipes","tag-readysetco","tag-recipes"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to regain sense of taste and smell after COVID-19 - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you lose your sense of taste and smell after COVID-19, try using strong-tasting foods like ginger and peanut butter or essential oils.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-to-regain-sense-of-taste-and-smell-after-covid-19\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to regain your sense of taste and smell after COVID-19\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you lose your sense of taste and smell after COVID-19, try using strong-tasting foods like ginger and peanut butter or essential oils.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-to-regain-sense-of-taste-and-smell-after-covid-19\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UCHealth Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/uchealthorg\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-10-19T20:03:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-07T18:24:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2021\/10\/19135227\/Chef-smelling-food-tiny.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Bill St. John, for UCHealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@uchealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@uchealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Bill St. John, for UCHealth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-to-regain-sense-of-taste-and-smell-after-covid-19\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-to-regain-sense-of-taste-and-smell-after-covid-19\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Bill St. John, for UCHealth\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#\/schema\/person\/6fab47ae1c5b24834f25747358a6c8e3\"},\"headline\":\"How to regain your sense of taste and smell after COVID-19\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-10-19T20:03:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-07T18:24:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-to-regain-sense-of-taste-and-smell-after-covid-19\/\"},\"wordCount\":1187,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-to-regain-sense-of-taste-and-smell-after-covid-19\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2021\/10\/19135227\/Chef-smelling-food-tiny.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"Bill St. John\",\"Healthy recipes\",\"Ready. 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If you lose taste and smell after a bout with COVID-19, try these methods to get them back. 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Bill's experience also includes teaching at Regis University and the University of Chicago and in classrooms of his own devising; working as on-air talent with Denver's KCNC-TV, where he scripted and presented a travel & lifestyle program called \"Wine at 45\"; a one-week stint as a Trappist monk; and offering his shoulder as a headrest for Julia Child for 20 minutes. 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