Taste vs. Texture: Perception, Assumptions and Questions

A blueberry virgin mojito turned my perception of taste upside down, inside out, and into an on-fire garbage can.

I have always been something of a picky eater. Even when I outgrew the kids menu at restaurants, my family would ask for one at places that didn’t have anything I would eat on the adults menu.

Eventually, I was 18 years old and my dinners still consisted of cheese pizza, plain hot dogs, and chicken nuggets. It was the summer before my last year of high school and college was looming on the horizon. My parents didn’t push or shove, but they voiced their concerns about my food choices. I understood their concerns, but even going to a specialist didn’t result in much progress.

We went on vacation to a Carolina beach resort. It was our first vacation since COVID had hit, to celebrate getting vaccinated together. I was feeling a little more adventurous than normal, and during our first dinner at the hotel restaurant, I decided to try something new: a blueberry virgin mojito.

It was a carbonated drink filled with ice, a wide straw, and mashed up blueberries and mint leaves sitting on the bottom. I took two quick sips. “I don’t like it.”

“Okay,” my dad said, determined to get to the bottom of this, “what don’t you like about it?”

The straw was resting on the bottom of the glass and when I went to drink, I sucked up little bits of mint leaves and blueberries as well. My dad suggested lifting the straw halfway up the glass to get around the issue. I tried another sip. “I actually really like this.”

“So the problem wasn’t the taste, it was the texture.”

“There’s a difference?”

Everytime I tried a food and did not like it, I said “I don’t like the taste.” Because that’s what you say when you don’t like a food. Even while knowing I was a diagnosed neurodivergent with high sensitivity to fabric textures, neither myself nor my parents ever considered it was a texture problem.

The gloopy feeling of mac and cheese makes me feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Condiments didn’t work for me because it was trying to mask a flavor but all I could feel was its texture in contrast to the more crunchy and solid foods I liked. I like strawberries and I like chocolate, but I don’t like chocolate covered strawberries because the textures don’t mix well for me. 

That same dinner I tried shrimp off my brother’s plate. I had never tried seafood of any kind before and do you want to know what it tasted like? I couldn’t tell you that, but I can tell you what the texture was like: chewy plastic. 

Now when people ask me to try new foods, I ask them about the texture and not the taste. Often I’ll have to ask them again because they describe the taste of the food automatically. 

It’s not just food I’ve had my perception shifted wildly about, but my own body as well. 

I have never been an athletic person and I just accepted that as a fact. I was always the first to tire out at theme parks, hikes, and museums. Once I started college, the base of my neck, my shoulders, and my spine would ache nearly daily. Walking up a steep hill would cause me to stop and have to roll out my ankles due to their complaining. I thought it was normal for someone who didn’t exercise regularly. I figured it was my own fault in a way.

Then, during a long weekend, my parents took me to the Museum of Science in Boston. There was an exhibit that would tell you what kind of arch your foot had. A low arch means you put a lot of weight on your heels and a high arch means you put a lot of weight on the front of your foot. According to the helpful signs, 0.3-0.25 was a low arch and 0.2-0.15 was a high arch.

I got 0.05. 

I tried again while trying to put weight onto the heels of my feet. I got 0.09.

I’ve been walking my entire life like I’ve been wearing high heels. Of course I’m the first one to tire out when walking or standing for long periods of time. Of course I never got into exercise. Of course my body aches and complains when I go up hills. I’ve been doing it all on my tip toes.

We bought me a set of arch supports on our way back the next day. I was a bit too overwhelmed during the semester to start adjusting to the supports but I have finally started the process in the last two weeks. It hasn’t come without its own aches and struggles. Literally, I’m using muscles and tendons that I haven’t been using and that is causing some muscle aches all over my body. Less literally, I’ve had trouble figuring out how to slowly adjust to arch supports over time as the way I was told to adjust was too much too fast. But I know it’s going to be worth it in the end.

It can be hard to describe what it was like before these kinds of revelations. 

It was like trying to run a marathon with bricks tied to your feet. You don’t know the bricks are there, you just know that moving forward is exhausting and difficult. Maybe you’ve been able to take a few steps or get a decent distance into the course. Maybe you’re still standing at the starting line. But you can still look forward and see the course ahead of you.

No two marathons are the same: some are organized, they have people handing out water, and the route is closed off from traffic. Some marathons are in 120 degree heat, go straight up a mountain side, and the cars are actively trying to hit you like you owe them money. You may look at the route and not even try to take a step forward.

But people notice that you’re struggling or not even trying. They don’t notice the bricks attached to your shoes, they just try to push you forward or pull you along. They don’t understand why pushing isn’t helping and not everyone believes you when you tell them how difficult it is to move forward. 

Then there’s a revelation and the brick comes off. Some come off smoothly in one quick go and others only have pieces broken off, leaving a lighter but unstable weight attached. It’s easier for other people to notice any remaining pieces of brick on your shoes. They might even offer advice or a helping hand that chips away at it. 

It’s a relief to learn about the brick. It wasn’t something you did that made moving forward so hard. You may feel lighter. You can finally move forward in the same way you saw other people moving! You feel so fast and free! You may feel confused or even angry. Why didn’t anyone tell me this? How didn’t I notice this sooner? Someone should have told me about the bricks!

Once the bricks come off, the marathon route hasn’t changed. What once looked impossible might look almost easy. You might look at a route and decide you still don’t want to risk getting hit by a car. Either way, it suddenly becomes much easier to understand how other people are able to complete the marathon. 

Having the bricks attached for so long does still affect you, especially if you haven’t tried moving forward in a long time. Your legs might be wobbly and weak at first but slowly strengthen with time and practice. If you’ve been struggling forward for a long time, you might take off so quickly that you fall flat on your face. You might have finished the marathon long before you learned about the bricks. But now you know.

Personally, I make sure to talk about the bricks to people. “I learned about these bricks a few years ago. Yah, they were tied to my shoes but they came off and it was a lot easier to do the marathon.” Sometimes, they look down and realize they have the same brick tied to their shoes.

Neurodivergents, when diagnosed, are told about many of the things they experience differently than other people. We’re told what is different, therefore everything else we experience must be normal, right? 

Everything you experience must be normal. Right?

Lauren Von Elm is currently interning at The Arc of North Virginia through a program with BroadFutures. She is a rising senior in college at Roger Williams University. She is working on a major in Marine Biology and hopes to study sharks in the future. “I am extremely passionate about sharks,” she says, “and even have a Spiny Dogfish Shark specimen in a jar named Finley!”