How to get your taste back while sick: A comprehensive guide

October 1, 2025 •

2 min read

Our sense of flavor is approximately 80% smell, which is why a stuffed-up nose from a cold or flu can make food seem bland. To stimulate your senses and get your taste back while sick, focus on both short-term sensory tricks and supporting your body's recovery.

Quick Summary

To regain taste while sick, focus on hydration, use strong aromatic herbs and spices, experiment with food textures and temperatures, and stimulate saliva production with sour or acidic foods to enhance flavor perception during your recovery.

Key Points

Aromatics over salt: Use strong spices, garlic, ginger, and herbs to enhance flavor instead of excess salt or sugar.
Stimulate saliva: Chewing slowly and using sour foods like lemon or vinegar can increase saliva and improve flavor perception.
Experiment with texture and temperature: Focus on sensory cues beyond taste by trying different food textures and temperatures.
Stay hydrated: Drinking plenty of fluids keeps your mouth moist and helps thin mucus that's blocking your senses.
Consider olfactory training: For prolonged loss, repeatedly sniffing strong scents like rose, lemon, and clove can help retrain your nervous system.
Address nutritional deficiencies: Ensure a balanced diet with adequate zinc and B12, as deficiencies can impact your sense of taste.

Understanding Why You Lose Your Sense of Taste

When a virus, like the common cold or flu, causes inflammation in your nasal passages, it can block the sense of smell, which is crucial for flavor perception. Dehydration and swelling of taste buds can also contribute to a diminished sense of taste while sick.

Immediate Strategies to Enhance Your Flavor Perception

While you recover, you can use these methods to make eating more palatable:

Maximize Flavor with Strong, Aromatic Ingredients

Instead of relying on salt and sugar, incorporate potent, natural flavors from spices like chili powder, cayenne, ginger, garlic, and onions, or fresh herbs such as basil, mint, and cilantro.

Stimulate Saliva Production with Sour and Tart Foods

Saliva helps transport food molecules to your taste buds. Increase saliva flow by adding a squeeze of lemon or lime juice, a dash of vinegar, or by chewing slowly.

Play with Texture and Temperature

Engage other senses by incorporating different food textures, from crunchy to creamy, and experiment with temperatures, as some find chilled or room-temperature foods more appealing.

Stay Hydrated to Combat Dehydration

Adequate hydration is vital for recovery and helps maintain mouth moisture for better flavor perception. Drink plenty of water and warm liquids like broth and herbal teas.

Longer-Term Olfactory Training for Persistent Issues

If loss of taste and smell lingers after illness, particularly post-COVID-19, olfactory training can help retrain your nervous system.

How to Practice Olfactory Training

Select scents: Choose four distinct aromas, such as rose, lemon, clove, and eucalyptus essential oils.
Practice regularly: Sniff each scent for 15-20 seconds twice daily, focusing on the smell and recalling its usual aroma.
Be patient: Improvement can take weeks to months.

The Role of Nutrition in Taste Recovery

Nutritional deficiencies, like a lack of zinc or Vitamin B12, can affect your sense of taste. A balanced diet supports overall immune health and recovery.

Comparison of Taste Recovery Strategies


Strategy	When to use	Action
Short-Term Fixes	During the acute phase of illness	Use strong, aromatic herbs/spices; experiment with textures and temperatures; stay hydrated.
Medium-Term Recovery	As illness subsides and taste/smell lingers	Practice daily olfactory training with 4 key scents (e.g., rose, lemon, clove).
Overall Support	At all times	Ensure a balanced diet, stay hydrated, and ensure adequate zinc and B12 intake.

Conclusion: Patience is a Virtue

For most, loss of taste while sick is temporary. Stimulating senses with strong flavors and different textures can make eating easier. Olfactory training can aid recovery for persistent issues. Allow your body time to heal, and your taste should return. Consult a doctor for severe or prolonged loss. Find more information from the Cleveland Clinic.

When to Seek Medical Advice

Consult a doctor if loss of taste is sudden, unexplained, or lasts weeks after other symptoms resolve. Also seek medical advice if accompanied by other severe symptoms like fever or difficulty breathing.

Frequently Asked Questions

When you're sick, particularly with a cold or flu, inflammation and congestion block your nasal passages. Since about 80% of what we perceive as taste is actually smell, a blocked nose significantly diminishes your ability to enjoy flavors.

For most viral infections like the common cold or flu, your sense of taste typically returns within one to three weeks as the inflammation subsides. However, in some cases, especially with COVID-19, it can take longer, and recovery varies by individual.

Yes, it is generally safe and often recommended to use strong, natural flavors from herbs, spices, and aromatics. These can make meals more palatable and ensure you get the nutrients you need. Avoid adding excessive salt or sugar, which are not beneficial for your health.

Ensuring you have adequate levels of zinc and Vitamin B12 is important, as deficiencies in these nutrients have been linked to a loss of taste. However, for most short-term illnesses, focusing on hydration and a balanced diet is sufficient.

Olfactory training, or smell training, involves repeatedly sniffing a set of strong, distinct scents (like rose, lemon, clove, eucalyptus) twice daily over several months. It helps to stimulate and retrain the nerves responsible for your sense of smell, and it has been shown to be effective for persistent loss of smell and taste.

While temporary loss of taste is common, you should contact a healthcare provider if the loss is sudden, unexplained, or lasts for several weeks after your other symptoms have cleared up. It could indicate a different underlying issue that needs professional evaluation.

The two senses are very closely linked. If you can still detect the basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter), but food seems bland and you can't identify complex flavors, it is more likely a problem with your sense of smell. A complete loss of all flavor perception points towards a more severe issue with both senses.