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Comment by mmastrac | Hacker News Reader

I don't think you understand. That's like saying mud is a preference over sugar. It's not sweet to me. It's not even in the same ballpark. I'd have to completely re-orient my taste buds because it literally tastes like dirt or dust without a hint of the same flavour.

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You're conflating two different things. Unless you have some very weird genetic condition, it does taste sweet to you. That is, it activates the same sweet receptors on your tongue and in other parts of your mouth that sugar activates - and more or less to the same extent (relative to concentration).

However, sugar isn't simply a sweet taste. It also has some amount of flavor, and so do the artificial sweeteners, and it is these flavor differences that you (and many others) dislike. Flavor is something that happens in the air tract, and is far more complex than taste.

It absolutely does not. The places on my tongue that taste sweet and the places that taste aspartame are completely different (the latter strongly at back of my throat, sugar strongly on my tongue).

It's a long standing myth that there are different taste regions on the tongue.

Fair enough. It's certainly not like that for most people though; which falls back to the _to you_ issue.

Maybe, as you questioned, there is a genetic component. Or just "something different about you" (not necessarily genetic).

No, this is pretty common in folks who don't drown their taste buds and systems in tons of it every day. Then you feel it anytime its there, since its pretty rare and its disgusting chemical bleh, one feels it fully.

Its a bit like smoking cigarettes - to many non-smokers, its disgusting beyond description, smearing face with old feces wouldn't be worse. To many smokers its mild, pleasant, they enjoy it with lunch etc.

I almost never drink artificial sweetened drinks.

But when I do, I barely notice a difference, and it doesn't really bother me.

Why is it so hard to believe that people's taste perception vary?

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