Sweet taste in mouth - ketosis/fat adaptation?

#1

Just one more post before I hit the sack. Well I have the dishes to do first. And cleaning up the kitchen. Anyway, there is a notable sweet taste in my mouth, my camomile tasted surprisingly sweet and then I drank some water which was also very sweet, I don’t think my breath has that fruity smell that is associated with ketosis though, unless my partner is too polite to mention it to me lol. But could this sweet taste in my mouth be a sign of ketosis or fat adaptation? Have any of you experienced it?

#2

I didn’t experience this but I started to feel everything drastically sweeter soon after I stopped eating added sugar. The same happened to my family members and they didn’t go low-carb at the same time like I did. They even kept eating sweet fruits so sugar and it still happened, to a similar extent as in my own case.

I am drinking a very weak plain tea. It is sweetish. But water is sweetish and sometimes my weak black coffee is sweetish… My sweet perception stayed the same for years but it started change again when I started to have carnivore and close to carnivore times. More and more things got “kind of sweet” and “too sweet”. I am curious when it will stop. I still can eat very sweet things (in tiny amounts or with a ton of black coffee but still) but it’s hard to enjoy them, it depends on the other flavors though.

But you seem to have this pretty quick!

#3

I just had a thought that it might be because I’ve upped my salt intake. I boil eggs now and salt them to taste, and today I feasted on a gammon joint, I had to use a bit of will power there or I would gladly have polished off the whole thing and then I wouldn’t have any for tomorrow, and everything has been tasting sweet, the cherry tomatoes I found a bit too sweet today, cauliflower and broccoli are both sweet lol. But I love raspberries which have that combination of sweet and sour. Perhaps, as you say, it’s just because I’ve given up all those sweet things I used to relish. We so quickly become accustomed to sugar don’t we when we eat a lot of the stuff, that then, even fruits can seem bitter in comparison. Crazy. And we can be the same with salt. But apparently our bodies need salt whereas I don’t think we need much sugar. Thanks for your reply and for sharing your thoughts :slight_smile:

#4

No, I always felt fruits very, very sweet (except the not very sweet ones)…
But they are even sweeter now :frowning: And I often find myself wish for the same fruit with way, way less sugar :frowning:
But it’s fine, at least I don’t overdo them (never was prone to it except in rare occasions but if one wants to do carnivore, a tiny is overdoing it…) and I still enjoy their looks and existence!
I still find lemon not too sweet :wink: and raw quince isn’t too sweet either (cooked quince is quite sweet though, maybe not too much, it’s a fruit, it doesn’t bother me if it’s sweet. onions became inedible and beetroots are problematic too as they are vegs and I don’t want them to be too sweet. but they are. I use super tiny amounts on onions and very much vinegar on beetroots so I still can eat them. rarely do but it happens. but I can’t enjoy them like in the past. I ADORED them both and ate them in huge amounts. huge for onions, at least. one egg, one big onion… now I couldn’t handle a small one in a 10-egg omelet!).
And there is a few more not too sweet fruits. So I can’t complain. But I do as some of my big favs are super sweet. I want the flavors, the juiciness and 1/4 of the sugar please! Maybe less, maybe more, I can’t tell just that WAY less would be ideal.

(No one should say “fruit” near me if they don’t want a looooooooooong text about them from me. I did it again. And it’s this short as it’s late and I should go.)

Indeed, we need sodium and even carbs in general aren’t essential. Even though some people don’t function well without some kinds. But sugar? It’s so very important for the body (no glucose? the brain dies) that we don’t need it to eat. And because it’s easy to make it from other things. We can’t make protein from other things due to the lack of nitrogen in other things we eat… But glucose is easy. So humans don’t die when fasting for several hours or even some days. Odd that many people still think we need to eat sugar very regularly to function… I don’t even understand why people on high-carb have problems without that, isn’t our body supposed to handle blood sugar no matter if we skip 1-2 meals or don’t eat sugar? Or if it doesn’t happen, that is a sign that the person isn’t healthy anymore…?
I just wonder about things when I am half-asleep already.

#5

I am half-asleep too lol, so will say goodnight and write something sensible tomorrow, but what I will say is I never thought avocados would become both sweet and irresistible to me, but now they are.

#6

If by “Sweet” and “fruity” you mean rotten curdled milk… yes. That’s ketone breathe!

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

I wouldn’t say that my mouth tastes sweet, though most other things taste sweeter than they used to. I do get a particular taste in my mouth, however, that I associate with being in ketosis. It’s strongest in the morning, but the coffee I drink throughout the day tends to eliminate it.

The biggest change in taste is unsweetened chocolate, which used to be so bitter I couldn’t stand it, but it now tastes fine. Not sweet, but a really nice, robust taste. Even 90% dark chocolate tastes really sweet, now.

#8

Yes 90% dark chocolate is wonderful and rich isn’t? And it doesn’t taste bitter to me at all. It is odd this flavour, it’s a constant sweet taste in my mouth, worse in the morning, that just makes everything else I eat and drink sweet too. But even more interestingly, when I woke up this morning I felt the house was insanely hot, and I’ve always been cold lol, but also I’ve been feeling an increase in energy, so perhaps I’ve reached fat-adaptation?

#9

Hmm, I wouldn’t say it’s rotten, but odd and probably not the best taste in the mouth to have, it’s just very sweet.

(Allie) #10

Too sweet for me :rofl:

#11

Oh I couldn’t live without my dark chocolate. If it does start to taste too sweet I’ll get cocoa nibs instead. But I’ve noticed certain things are beginning to taste much sweeter, like vegetables, broccoli and cauliflower, and fruits like cherry tomatoes and avocado. Our tastes and appetites do certainly change, my lunch today was a cold hardboiled egg and a piece of cold gammon joint, my partner said the meat was very salty, I didn’t find that at all.

(Allie) #12

https://www.montezumas.co.uk/absolute-black.html

This is what I moved on to, but have now binned it completely as I’ve realised there’s something in it that really messes with my sleep, even if eaten in the morning.

(Jane) #13

I am working the night shift right now at a chemcial plant and they left me some pizza in the fridge for my dinner.

I scraped the cheese and meat off and tossed the crust. Then I had to scrape the sauce off the bottom - it was cloyingly sweet!

I use the Rao’s sauces at home because the don’t have any added sugar - the tomatoes are sweet enough for my tastes.

#14

I had a look at the ingredients and couldn’t see anything listed in the chocolate bar but cocoa. But pure cocoa, I imagine, can wreak havoc on sleep and I suppose also the nervous system. I once tried to eat pure cocoa powder instead of my usual dark chocolate, this was many years ago, and I experienced some pretty weird side-effects, my sleep was definitely affected. It is easy to believe that if you eat a food that is marked 100% pure it will be healthy. But you could eat a 100% poisonous mushroom and that of course, wouldn’t do anyone any good at all. So when we eat certain things in purity, like cocoa, we have to also understand how that cocoa might affect us, if we’re not used to it in that concentrated form. So sometimes, I do believe, especially when it comes to plants, that a weakened version of a so-called superfood will make it easier for the body to digest than when it’s entirely pure. And it’s all too easy to fall into that purity spiral, but ultimately, that type of thinking doesn’t tend to go hand in hand with sustainable living.

(Allie) #15

It’s the theobromine that’s naturally in chocolate that totally messes me up. The darker the chocolate, the more it has in it, and I seem to be particularly sensitive to it.

Was never a chocolate fan as a child as I made me feel ill, so suspect this has always been an issue for me.

#16

Ah, I was the oppsite, a complete chocolate addict, and for many years it was the sweetest chocolates I craved and then in the later years I moved on to dark chocolate. As a child whenever my mum asked me what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday it was always chocolate cake. My youngest son is the same, absolutely chocolate cake-mad, so maybe we inherit not just mannerisms and traits, but tastes as well. My partner still eats the sweet chocolate bars and I do get tempted when I see them in the cuboard, but not enough to sabotage myself and bring on a load of inflammation.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #17

That’s entirely possible. It also means you probably ate more than you actually needed. The metabolism not only slows down when we don’t give our bodies enough calories, it also speeds up and wastes energy when we give it more than enough.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #18

Probably the theobromine, which is chemically related to caffeine. They belong to a class of chemicals called methylxanthines, which all serve as stimulants and bronchodilators to varying degrees.

P.S.—Oops, should have read further. You already said that!

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #19

My guess is that it’s not the actual chocolate that is the attraction, but the sugar content. Again guessing, I suspect that the bitterness of the cacao makes the sugar even more palatable and less noticeable, so that we eat more than we are truly aware of.

One of the interesting side effects of keto for me is that I don’t like chocolate with any degree of sweetness anymore, even if it’s an artificial sweetener.

#20

I certainly wouldn’t say the energy was wasted, I did much better on my morning walk and even felt like dancing. As too eating too much, I have been steadfastly losing weight on this WOE eating intuitively and not weighing any food, I just look it up on google. I began keto 12 Oct, I was then 56kg. I am now 52kg, and all water retention and inflammation seems pretty much gone. But my energy apart from this morning has been low. This morning I felt great, but didn’t eat anything more yesterday than any other day apart from a piece of gammon joint, which tasted heavenly.