simont | (no subject)

Get up. Blear into bathroom to shave. Half way to bathroom, suffer attack of absentmindedness about why I was going there. Arrive in bathroom, squeeze toothpaste on to brush, insert brush in mouth.

About two nanoseconds after doing this, taste of toothpaste shocks me properly awake and I realise that now I have to miss breakfast since it would taste vile if I didn't. Quite why I couldn't have figured this out two nanoseconds before committing myself will be for my subconscious to explain shortly before it gets FIRED FOR GROSS INCOMPETENCE.

(A colleague of mine says that a friend of his apparently used to use this as a weight loss technique: after every meal, as soon as you think you've eaten as much food as you really need, get up and immediately clean your teeth. This will discourage you from continuing to eat, and as an added bonus you keep your teeth healthy too :-)

Still. I hope I can be more useful than that for the rest of the day, or I might do better just to go back home to bed…

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Congratulations! You have just invented the Toothpaste Diet. I suggest you write a book about it and make lots of money.

(alas, it doesn't work on me. I can eat fine after toothpaste.)

Er, if your toothpaste tastes foul then wouldn't it be a better idea to try a different flavour?

Who said my toothpaste tasted foul? There's nothing wrong with the toothpaste itself; it just doesn't combine well with pretty much any food. I thought this was almost universally the case with toothpaste.

I have no problem with my toothpaste unless I actually try to brush my teeth while I still have bits of half digested biscuit in my mouth or something. Toothpaste and then food isn't a problem at all. You can't really taste the toothpaste except during the actual process of brushing; if it had a significant aftertaste that would be pretty nasty.

How odd. I have found every toothpaste I've ever used (at least since I stopped being ten years old and allowed to use strawberry-flavoured stuff) to have a strong aftertaste of mint which leaves my mouth feeling clean and fresh and pleasant, but just incidentally conflicts horribly with anything I put in it within the next hour or so.

What toothpaste do you use which is either not mint-related or insufficiently minty to have this effect?

Colgate Total. (Not "Colgate Total Fresh Stripe", "Colgate Total Advanced Fresh" or "Colgate Total Plus Whitening"...) I can't stand spearmint flavour or other strongly minted toothpastes, but I classify those as 'tastes foul' :-)

Ah, well, that's simple enough then. That's the same toothpaste I use; so if you find it doesn't conflict with food and I do, then it must be a difference between us rather than between our toothpastes.

beckyc states above that she has no problem eating after toothpaste either. Goes to show.

I find specific foods/drinks (e.g. orange juice) somewhat unpleasant after toothpaste, but not to the extent that I would refrain from consuming them if hungry! Is this strong reaction perhaps connected to your anosmia in some way?

I suppose that's not impossible; I imagine toothpaste would affect the taste aspect of flavour more than the smell aspect, and since the former is all I have it would make reasonable sense for the effect to be more pronounced.

I've never until today had the faintest idea that my reaction wasn't pretty much universal, however. This is interesting.

Adrian brushes his teeth before or after breakfast, he doesn't care, and I don't like to eat too soon after brushing my teeth. As I think I mentioned, I have slight anosmia. This seems to be slight corroborration, but only very slight.

I do have a problem eating straight after brushing my teeth, but it has nothing to do with the taste: It makes the act of brushing my teeth seem like a total waste of time.

That's the same toothpaste I use [...] it must be a difference between us rather than between our toothpastes.

Oh well. How about buying the strawberry flavoured stuff anyway? :-)