[ok_craig]

I actually love the taste of Taco Bell and find Chipotle to be heaping piles of blandness. But all my friends and coworkers prefer it and would laugh at me if I ate cheap fast food, so I end up going to Chipotle more often. It's definitely not for the taste.

[ericd]

This may be because you're used to the relatively extreme, engineered flavors of Taco Bell. The Doritos shell is just the latest in that escalation.

After you've not eaten that stuff for a while, I think your internal scale resets.

[netcan]

It seems a little condescending to say the reason you like X is because you tastes are less developed.

[totalrobe]

In my experience what you have eaten in the past days/weeks has a whole lot to do with how things taste. Your taste buds can indeed be de-sensitized.

A couple years ago, I went 30 days with no processed foods, no wheat products, and almost no sugar. Everything had so much flavor and eating fruit was a mouth-gasm.

This being HN I expect some snarky response but maybe just try it. There has to be some science behind it but I haven't found any sources to cite.

*found a source http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=3105

[netcan]

I'm sorry if I seemed snarky. I didn't mean to.

I agree with you. But I think it's similarly correct to go the other direction, you like more natural foods because you get used to them. There are other issues relating to how people "taste" food, to do with how they feel about it.

Kids think McDonalds tastes better. If you tell them their vegetable soup came from McDonalds and packaged it up that way, they'd probably like it more. Adults have similar biases. Food from a nice restaurant tastes better, if they believe nice restaurants serve nicer food. Some believe organic tastes better. Home made. etc. It's not far from truth to say political positions affect taste. And since fast food seems to get huge traction wherever it goes and with whoever can afford it, I think it's probably less true to say that it is fake tasty fueled by habits and ads while real food is the real tasty. It seems to take a lot of conscious reinforcement to make real food win.

My point is that I don't think there is a "real" here, or if there is it's elusive.

But, I agree that by changing your habits you can change your tastebuds. Also by changing your beliefs. Maybe by changing your friends.

I think the fact remains pretty strong that fast food grew because people like it. It sticks around despite the fact that people probably tell others they like it less than they do these days.

I like to cook. I like nice restaurants. I like home cooking and fresh ingredients. I like the range of different foods from different places. I don't each fast food more than a few times a year. It's bad for you. But when I do, it's a treat. I feel bad, slightly ashamed, but I enjoy it. :) It's tasty.

[marincounty]

In high school I cut out all fat, added sugar(honey, etc), and only ate whole wheat in baked goods for about two years. I did it because I was worried about clogging up my arteries.(Yea, I was/am kind of neurotic.) It was the eighties, and a heart attack was a heart attack. I remember my GP saying he hasn't see a total cholesterol of 130 in a while. I wished I kept that diet.

[ok_craig]

I almost never eat it, but I still love it when I do.