Dear Reader,

As if a runny nose, coughing, and a sore throat weren't bad enough, you and millions of others coping with a cold can't even savor the flavor of homemade chicken soup. Your inability to taste anything when you have a cold is closely related to all the sniffling that keeps you inside and under the blankets.

While our tongues have thousands of taste buds to measure the four primary tastes — salty, sour, sweet, and bitter — the olfactory receptor cells at the top of our nasal cavity measure the odors that provide us with the sumptuous (or not so sumptuous) flavors we associate with certain foods. Our sense of smell is actually responsible for about 75 percent of what we typically think of as our sense of taste. So, if your nasal passage is blocked by all the mucus that keeps you sniffling and sneezing, your olfactory receptor cells aren't being visited by those odors. Which leaves everything tasting pretty much the same.

But you can try to look on the bright side: you can't really taste those unpleasant cold medicines, either.

Alice

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