— Cecilia Vélez-Rivera

Oof. So I got sick was that last year and had that happen to me and it was pretty tough because it was just not as appealing to me. I think that the best thing for um, you know, for cooking for somebody who's lost their sense of smell is to be able to still, uh, you know, just focus on good food. One thing you wanna focus on a little bit more is texture as well, right? To be able to make it. Um, so it's interesting. So you know, if you're just eating bites of things that are like pudding all the time, it's not gonna be very interesting at all. But if you add a little bit of crunch to that, it's gonna be different. I'm not saying you should put crunch into pudding, but I guess you could. Um, but think about what things are gonna be very herbaceous, be big flavors to see um, if they're, if they're, they have a very small amount of smell, um, or taste, uh, you know, um, that would be able to kind of help out with that. Um, but I guess you're saying with out there loss of smell but it might be taste as well. Um, so yeah, I think that's probably one of the biggest recommendations I would say is cook what you're cooking for everybody else, but also think about texture that's involved in this as well, along with just your normal nutrition, right? So really good nutrition, texture. And then also look for big flavors that kind of pop that will kind of go through a little bit. 'cause you'll be surprised sometimes, you know, even my, my mother-in-law who's lost her sense of taste a long time ago. Um, there are certain dishes I make for where she'll be like, wow, I can taste that. And it's amazing because it's uh, just a big pop of flavor. So short answer, cook the way you would for everybody else. Make sure it's very nutritious and add some, um, diversity into it by adding texture.