“Genetic quirk”, you say?
“What’s your mutation? Teleportation? Laser Eyes? Weaponized Tornadoes?”
“…I… I can smell ants… how about yours?”
“Oh… well… my mutation is that cilantro tastes like chalk to me.”
I was born with 2.5 kidneys, an extra ureter and 4 of my permanent teeth never showed up. Also mild colour vision deficiency.
I was talking about it with our first lieutenant in the army and he went “Corporal, you’re a mutant!”. “Yes, sir, I am sir.”
God soap cilantro just sucks. I really wish people knew it tastes like gross to like 3-21% of the world population.
I just wish it wasn’t automatically in anything Mexican. I just want to taste what other people taste. :(
The weirdest thing happened when I was recovering from covid. I couldn’t really taste much, but cilantro suddenly had a perfume-like scent. It eventually went back to normal after I recovered, but I definitely have a healthy level of sympathy for people who taste soapy cilantro now
Exposure therapy works for this. You can still detect the chemical that made it taste that way, but the brain can rewire to perceive it as pleasant. If you’re serious about fixing the problem, start by adding small amounts to dishes and work your way up as your tolerance changes.
That just sounds like brainwashing yourself to make something taste ‘good’ when it’s not. See Alcohol, black coffee, etc.
Right, but I legitimately love the taste of coffee now. Am I wrong? I know I didn’t like it as a kid, but does that mean I was correct to not like it then or correct to like it now?
I don’t know, but my instinct is that being able to enjoy the flavor of coffee is a real benefit. For instance, I can taste the nuance of coffee flavor in tiramisu. Without gaining an appreciation for coffee flavor, many foods that use that flavor would just taste bad.
There are no inherently good or bad flavours, it’s all just how our brains are wired to perceive them. Sometimes the wiring gets it wrong and warns us about a food that is harmless. I see no reason not to try fixing that.
There are no inherently good or bad flavours
X is in the eye of the beholders are the worst.
You can fool yourself into thinking shit tastes like sugar all you want but subjective reality and the reality your brain perceives should not be conflated lol.
Shit should taste bad though, given that it is bad for you to eat. This is not the case for cilantro, so why not retrain your brain to like it?
All I was offering is a strategy that has worked for me, and many other people. I used to hate cilantro and despised its omnipresence in certain cuisines. I can now enjoy these things and you possibly can as well, if you choose to do the work. If you’d prefer to whine instead of attempting to solve the problem you said you have, that’s on you.
Those are more like your eyes adjusting to brightness/darkness. You’re not tricking yourself into thinking the alcohol taste or coffee bitterness are good, you’re desensitizing yourself to them, which lets you sense other flavors.
Sometimes there’s no other strong flavors so you get “Huh, this cold brew concentrate tastes like water, I didn’t even add ice, try it” “wtf that is so bitter!!”
How do you know that cilantro tastes like soap and not soap tastes like cilantro.
All I’m saying is that cilantro doesn’t taste that good and some soaps smell amazing.
The mortality ratio of that school gives me pause.
Also, so many old white guys hanging on the wall.
What the hey? Let them down!
I have a friend who can smell cockroaches no joke. We always take her restaurant suggestions very seriously.
I can smell ants and cockroaches. I can also smell when someone has been in my house hours after they leave. Its annoying as hell to have this sense of smell since its considered rude to point out that someone stinks. To me its like they are screaming in a small room.
No anime conventions for you unless you wear a gas mask!
In 95 I was staying at a hotel that had a D&D convention. I was with a group of union boilermakers and we got gripped at by the staff for refusing to allow some of those stinkers on the elevator with us.
I’ve never actually been to an anime convention and had no idea how common anime fans with poor hygiene actually existing was until I read some of the horror stories when this was posted before.
I can smell cockroaches and periods. It’s weird, but I can for some reason
I can smell when a woman has her period if I smell her skin, so not at any distance other than intimately. My best guess is all the hormonal changes alter pheromones from the normal and we can pick up on that.
Not like it is a bad smell, just her normal natural scent changes.
Oh yeah me as well. I can also smell when someone has a disease. I know cancer or at least the type my grandmother had but some of them I have no idea what is wrong with them. I can also differentiate different kinds of drugs.
My sense of smell is very sensitive. Like I can detect people have been there by smell too, and often who it was. But I don’t think I’ve ever smelled ants or cockroaches. Thank god too.
I have a good sense of smell but…that sounds more like cripplingly good
I’m one of these people. I can smell an apartment roach infestation from the front door, every time.
And yes, restaurants always get the “sniff check” before we sit down. No-go odors are:
- bleach
- pine-sol (amonia)
- heavy perfume (think “Glade plugin-in”)
- insects (roaches, etc)
- pet odor (wet dog, litterbox)
- sewage (usually a dry floor drain but that’s still not okay)
- dingy carpet (think: “old movie theater”)
The first two are obvious attempts at covering up something worse with “clean” smells, and/or the staff has no idea what “clean” actually means. And they obviously don’t care what olfaction means to someone trying to enjoy a meal, which says heaps about what they think food service actually is. Everything else just speaks to the “I don’t care what you smell” part, or there’s something very wrong with how the kitchen is run. /rant
An example of a top-shelf dining odor experience? I once went to a Japanese restaurant at opening time. The only smell in the dining room was that of the specific kind of imported cedar in the cutting boards. This is traditionally cleaned with boiling hot water, and nothing else. This released a gentle woody and pine-y scent that just filled the space and invited the senses. I came hungry, but I sat down ravenous. The meal to follow was something I will never forget.
Edit: some clarification since this got some traction. I know that bleach and ammonia are s-tier disinfectants and absolutely necessary for food prep, health standards, and the rest. I use this stuff at home. My issue is with establishments that utterly fail at ventilating these odor and spoil the dining experience with strong chemical odors. Looking deeper I find very strong cleaning odors (long after opening hours) suspicious since it’s very easy to splash stuff around, giving the impression of cleanliness, but not actually clean anything. Strong chemical smells also make it impossible to detect sewage, rot, mold, soil, and other things that would easily flag a restaurant. I’d rather not take the chance.
Yeah no dude, I keep a ten percent mixture of bleach n water around to sanitize surfaces I use for food prep. This is standard practice. The dishes get soaked in a weak bleach mixture after washing. 3 sinks, wash, bleach, rinse. And there’s pinesol in the mop bucket.
There is a difference between standard bleach and pinesol usage and using it as a way to conceal other smells or problems. Or even worse, not knowing how to use those chemicals to clean. You know how to use a weak bleach solution for cooking surfaces, does your bartender? I’ve seen front of house employees over use cleaning chemicals because isn’t it better to use stronger chemicals to clean. My favorite was the hostess who didn’t want to clean the bathroom so she would just fill the soap and and paper products and fill a spray bottle with Lysol that she would spray around to give the smell of a clean bathroom.
It’s unlikely anyone will notice the smell of properly used cleaning products.
and fill a spray bottle with Lysol that she would spray around to give the smell of a clean bathroom
Depending upon the formula of Lysol, that’s actually worse than not doing anything.
We’ve got a brand called Lyzol and that seems to be the same formula as Lysol, before it got regulated in the US. If this were to be sprayed, I’d consider the area poisoned.Lyzol
This contains some chemical that lingers even if you wash the floor with water afterwards and slowly produces volatile compounds, and stays for > a week. This gives me (and a few other people on quora) a headache. Again, from reports on quora, the smelly substance also tends to jump onto one’s hand, on touching the surface, making it disastrous for cooking.
Nowadays, I use Dettol disinfectant liquid, which stops smelling after about 1/2 hour of wind.Yeah, I can see a place smelling like a public swimming pool being off-putting. 10% bleach is really common across the food industry, though. Making bread, jerky, kombucha, and various grains, each facility had the same bleach concentration for cleaning (among other cleaning and sanitizing solutions).
My favorite was the hostess who didn’t want to clean the bathroom so she would just fill the soap and and paper products and fill a spray bottle with Lysol that she would spray around to give the smell of a clean bathroom.
This is exactly the kind of BS I’m talking about. I once knew some pool lifeguards that had to rotate through bathroom cleaning duty. I overheard that their MO was to just get everything wet with a hose, splash pinesol on the floor, and call it a day.
I am my bartender. Also the janitor and cook. Yes, a ten percent bleach mixture does give an odor, it fades within minutes. I was just chopping raw chicken, sure, boiling water is an option, but awkward. Quick wipe down, spritz solution everywhere, wipe again 5 minutes later, better for all involved.
This is basically evey kitchen I’ve worked in. The pine sol can be substituted or more commonly mixed with other detergents.
The first two are obvious attempts at covering up something worse with “clean” smells, and/or the staff has no idea what “clean” actually means.
Or they’re the cleanest places you’ve never eaten in.
Yeah this entire thread is filled with people who think they have superpowers but failing basic logic.
That’s entirely possible. The problem is that with chlorine or ammonia vapors savaging your nasal cavity, you’ll never really know.
I’ve tried to push through in these situations and it’s never good.
Bro, bleach is literally how you are supposed to sanitize restaurant surfaces. This thread is wild.
Agreed! But “smells like cleanser” does not mean “is clean”. It jams up my radar (sense of smell) so it’s tough to figure out if anything else is up. I’d rather detect no off odors or cleansers at all to be sure.
Well put.
Just wanted to point out when an odor is pleasant it’s an aroma.
heavy perfume …
“I don’t care what you smell”
This is one reason I stopped eating lunch with other people. Some people use so much of Deodorant (oh the irony in the name) that the volatile compounds get adsorbed onto the surface of fluids in the mouth and then get tasted and also go into the stomach. All I’d say is - They taste bad.
I don’t think those chemicals are supposed to be edible.
I can smell roaches and bedbugs. One is annoying. The second will cause me to flee a building in horror.
I’ve also informed several friends that they were pregnant. They never believe me the first time.
TBF, there are lots of things with a smell similar to cockroaches. Some of them wouldn’t be a red flag to be found at a restaurant. Also, smells are very localized, and I doubt your friend walks through the kitchen.
But yeah, I’ve gone away from restaurants because they smelled like cockroaches.
Smells are very localized
Smells are airborne. They move with the air.
You can walk into a house and tell they’re cooking dinner, just by smells that have traveled 50 feet from the kitchen to the front door.
Dispersion varies widely due to the kind of smell, intensity, and air circulation.
Most smells do not travel 50 feet.
I thought everyone could. Is that something only some people can smell as well?
Roaches do have a smell. Yuck. Ants though? There are so many different kinds of them, I can’t smell them, or I haven’t noticed if so.
My lunatic ex had a nose like a bloodhound. He could smell anything.
I don’t question your friend’s ability to smell cockroaches, but I gotta tell you, there is no restaurant without them. The best you can do is minimize.
Roaches go where there’s food. That’s just a fact of life.
Wait, is that true? Is someone able to smell ants?
Smell is how ants communicate with one another so maybe these ant sniffers will be the first humans who can speak ant.
cant say for ant. but i can smell cockroaches
Me who spent months taking Tupperware boxes full of cockroaches out of the freezer and separating them by hand because our ants were picky eaters: I still smell them, to this day.
Thanks ants. Thants.
I have questions.
just bio major things
🤢 i dont envy you
yikes. how do you react when you get a whiff? is it already too late and you don’t smell them until they are next to you, or is it a general “oh wow you have a roach prob in this house”
if its in my room, that shitling better gtfo my place. if they just arrived i can usually smell them when theyre around 1m off me. but if they been chilling in the room i can smell them once i enter the room. imagine like walking little turd. the more they are the worse the smell.
wow that is crazy thank you for expanding.
The smell like pepper to me. Well, you know how when you crush bricks or rocks it kinda has a peppery smell? It’s that pepper scent.
100%
I can smell them to the point I know when an area has an abundance of ant hills.
I can, they also taste absolutely abhorrent and ruin food they are in for me. It’s a very bitter chemical taste and smell.
Holy shit I thought I was either full of shit or a mutant freak. I’m happy to be a mutant freak.
I feel so validated right now you guys have no idea.
This! I used to tell people all the time I could smell some ant hills from several yards away. Fire ants smell like death. The larger and more aggressive species in my area smell more than the more benign ants. I’m sure it’s a warning to other animals to stay away.
This just tells me ant particles are constantly flying into my nose and mouth and I don’t have receptors for them. Gross
If you smelled poop even if it’s far away, then poop particles have gone inside your nose, and yes. Tha nose cavity is connected to your mouth cavity.
Good luck sleeping, knowing that whenever you smell disgusting things, they are now also inside your mouth.
Honestly, kind of a blessing. It’s not like you could do much about it if you knew.
When you smell a fart, molecules from someone else’s asshole are inside your nose
When you take a dump and feel the smell from the toilet - it’s an actual shit particles reaching your nose and mouth. You eat shit while you shit.
Well I’m already full of shit so tough luck particles, there’s no room
I mean, your bed is home to tens of thousands of microscopic bugs as well. I’d rather not smell them.
Ant smell is for communicating with other ants. These are ant smellers not human. The ant-people have been controlling our governments. It’s true! Look it up!
Probably similar to that “bitterness” test that a lot of kids got to do in science class where you taste that little strip of paper. To some it’s nothing, to others it’s very bitter. Genetics has given some the extra “taste”, supposedly that might allow people to avoid eating poisonous things containing oxalates or glucosinates. Unfortunately it also means you probably dislike things lie IPA beers or other foods that have bitter compounds that don’t bother others.
Huh that’s interesting…I hate beer, lager and coffee, all everyday adulting things…I wonder if I have this gene.
I have a high sensitivity to sour. It sucks. Apples are often too sour. So it’s not just ants, or bitterness.
Mine has always been vision and hearing hard sounds, like doors closing. I can hear all the stupid little sounds like that. And I’m just weirdly good at deciphering shadows at night as long as there’s some light.
I’m sure in ancient times this variation of who has good senses for what served a purpose.
I am oddly good at hearing engine noises. If a motor or piece of machinery starts doing something different I usually hear it. I worked in manufacturing and I could usually call out a machine that was about to breakdown. Also when a part has been replaced I usually hear the difference in noise.
I have really annoying hearing. I’m not sure how to fully describe it but my ears are super tuned into sounds. Very often I will be sitting with my wife or somebody else and I am like “do you hear that?” and they are like “wtf are you talking about?” and I have to be like “Shhh… That! Did you hear it?” and they are like “no wtf” and then I’m like “Wait no no… Wait… That! Did you hear it?” and they are like “Wait yeah… How tf did you hear that while we were talking? Were you paying attention?” and I’m like “No, I wasn’t because I kept hearing this noise”…
Like… Sometimes people’s voices just sound like noises and I can’t hear them unless I focus because my ears are listening to the noises around me. It can be really frustrating.
Oh yeah, I get that too, where my brain just decides not to decipher spoken words suddenly. At any rate, noise cancelling headphones are awesome.
Have you ever been tested for Sensory Processing Disorder
No, they probably just rolled all of that into the ADHD diagnosis.
You would hate this goddamn bird outside my window that doesn’t shut up from 5:30-10:30 every morning
Haha, I sleep like the dead.
guess that’s why you’re all… maggoty
Lol yeah. Part of it anyways.
Some people wipe standing up…
Some people can see images and hear voices inside their heads…
It’s okay homie… there are dozens of us ;-)
I used to, until it was pointed out that wiping while sitting is better so I switched
How is it “better”?
Keeps your cheeks spread so you don’t mush the poop when you stand up.
I switched from wiping from the back, to wiping from the front, to dabbing the bidet water off a little bit because bidets are absolutely incredible.
Some people don’t wipe at all. Bidet gang represent!
I can smell wasps nests. The queen odor is very strong to me. But other smells people notice are lost on me.
And I hear everything. Autism I guess.
And I hear everything. Autism I guess.
Big Autism is listening you))
Ok so about the hearing thing… I’ve always assumed I’m somewhere on the spectrum, focus issues etc all the tell tale signs but like at a 2 or 3 tops. However, last like year I’ve been finding myself awake at night once or twice a week and i swear i can hear the cosmos. Literally every noise everywhere. Is it imagination? Combination?
Oh yeah? I have a model train behind my back, what model is it?
I can’t smell living ants, but there’s a common species of ant in the US that smells like rotten coconut when squished.
But how dies rotten coconut smell?
deleted by creator
it’s like they’re not even paying attention
deleted by creator
I’m not sure about rotten coconut but there are small black ants here in Oklahoma that smell strongly… metallic? to me when I squish then.
Formic acid
Great, now im gonna accidently inhale some ants as I try to smell them.
Don’t try and hone your skill with fire ants then.
Ozzy Osbourne would like a word.
I can only smell them when I kill them 🤷♂️
See, My Hero Academia is real. It’s just that our quirks suck. Is not having allergies a quirk. Cause that’s the best I’ve got. That or my weak sense of smell. Comes in handy when cleaning disgusting stuff.
My quirk is strong bones. I have survived big falls without any bone breakages others didn’t. I even weight more.
