When our taste-buds woke up...

When our taste-buds woke up...

Did you know that an average adult has between 2,000 - 4,000 taste-buds. And that sensory cells in the taste buds are renewed once a week. Interesting, no?

This story is specifically about when my husband and I found and switched to a paleo diet. Our taste-buds began a journey to appreciate the taste of whole foods but it didn’t happen over night.

We stumbled on the paleo diet from a Facebook post from a college friend who was raving about it. Our first baby girl was 6 months old and recently started on solid foods. I was still carrying some of baby weight and dear old dad was carry some “sympathy weight” too.

We both wanted to do really good by our daughter, be good examples and be healthy. All the things. You know that feeling when your world has suddenly expanded because of this new tiny human that you’re responsible for.

So, we bought and read the books, My husband had already been working out intensely for a while, but with little results. We implemented the paleo diet hard core. Like emptied the freezer and pantry of everything that had to go. No looking back.

This is also when we bought our first side of beef from a local ranch. As broke teachers, recently out of college, it was a splurge. We actually used tax return money to buy it.

The results were convincing. He lost 40lbs, quickly. All the working out started working. I wasn’t working out, just sleep deprived and blissfully wrapped up in being a mom for the first time. But, I still lost 10lbs quickly and easily. Our heads were clearer, we had more energy and felt in a better mood more often.

Yet, at first, everything just didn’t taste as good as all the processed foods that we use to eat regularly. We missed little things like gravy from the packets, ranch, and frozen waffles. Donuts man, I craved those hard!
It took a while, months I think, before our taste-buds adjusted. But, I remember the moment clearly.

Sitting in folding chairs at our little card table of a dinning table, with our daughter there in her highchair. We were eating paleo spaghetti with spaghetti squash . We made the tomato sauce, added the fresh bell peppers and onions, mixed with the grass fed ground beef and seasoned with Italian spices.

Eating dinner that evening, all of my taste-buds just woke up and they were shouting at me their excitement. This wasn’t even the first time we’d eaten this meal. It had become a new regular for us.

But, it was the first time I could really taste the whole food ingredients as they actually were. And, they were delicious!

I remember a long while later when for some reason I was browning some regular grocery store beef. I cooked it but I couldn’t eat it. The whole thing smelled and tasted rancid to me.

I guess once your taste-buds adjust to a grass-based protein diet they don’t appreciate much else.

Do you have a similar story about retraining your palate to appreciate a less processed, more whole foods diet? We'd love to hear about it.

 

DOWNLOAD OUR FAMILY PALEO SPAGHETTI RECIPE

Back to blog

Leave a comment

Please note, comments need to be approved before they are published.