75 percent of what we taste is actually smell, not taste
Más de seis millones de personas en el mundo conviven con una pérdida sensorial que apenas reconocen como tal: la del olfato, ese sentido invisible que moldea la memoria, la emoción y la experiencia del sabor. La bióloga Laura López-Mascaraque advierte que la hiposmia y la anosmia se instalan en silencio, revelándose primero en el plato —cuando la comida pierde profundidad y la mano busca más sal— antes de que el afectado comprenda lo que ha cambiado. En una cultura que privilegia la vista y el oído, el olfato sigue siendo el sentido más ignorado, pese a que su ausencia redefine la manera en que habitamos el mundo.
- Seis millones de personas padecen trastornos olfativos sin saberlo, confundiendo la pérdida con simple desinterés por la comida o con el paso del tiempo.
- El 75% de lo que percibimos como sabor depende en realidad del olfato: cuando este falla, los alimentos se reducen a textura y sal, y el cuerpo compensa añadiendo más condimento sin entender por qué.
- Fenómenos como la adaptación, la fatiga y el enmascaramiento olfativo explican por qué dejamos de percibir aromas familiares en minutos, o por qué un ambientador puede ocultar señales de peligro real.
- Las señales de alerta son cotidianas y fáciles de ignorar: usar más perfume sin notarlo, no detectar el humo, perder el placer por platos que antes se amaban.
- La experta subraya que el olfato puede entrenarse y recuperarse, pero la mayoría de las personas nunca lo intenta porque ni siquiera concibe su nariz como una capacidad que merece atención.
Más de seis millones de personas en el mundo viven con una pérdida sensorial que no siempre reconocen. Usan más sal. Dejan de notar el café por las mañanas. Se aplican perfume y lo olvidan al instante. Son las señales silenciosas de un trastorno olfativo —hiposmia o anosmia— que avanza sin anunciarse, hasta que la relación con la comida empieza a cambiar de forma inexplicable.
Laura López-Mascaraque, bióloga y presidenta de la Red Olfativa de España en el Centro de Neurociencias Cajal, lleva años estudiando lo que la mayoría da por sentado. Describe el olfato como un sentido que opera casi en la sombra, profundamente ligado a la memoria, la emoción y la percepción del entorno, pero sistemáticamente ignorado frente a la vista o el oído. La paradoja es que gobierna más de nuestra experiencia de lo que creemos: aproximadamente el 75% de lo que llamamos sabor es, en realidad, olfato. Sin él, la comida se convierte en textura y sal. Las personas empiezan a compensar —más condimento, más perfume— sin comprender por qué.
López-Mascaraque describe además tres fenómenos que explican cómo el olfato se apaga sin que lo notemos. La adaptación olfativa ocurre en minutos: entramos a una panadería y el aroma desaparece de nuestra conciencia casi de inmediato, aunque siga presente. La fatiga olfativa es una insensibilidad más prolongada, especialmente gravosa para quienes trabajan rodeados de aromas todo el día. Y el enmascaramiento olfativo ocurre cuando un olor fuerte encubre otro, como un ambientador que disimula una señal de peligro.
Lo que hace a estos trastornos especialmente traicioneros es su discreción. El cuerpo habla en claves pequeñas —más sal, menos placer, más perfume— que la experta urge a no ignorar. Y ofrece también una nota de esperanza: el olfato puede entrenarse. La capacidad está ahí, esperando ser cultivada. La pregunta que deja abierta es si comenzaremos a prestarle atención antes de perderlo del todo.
More than six million people around the world are living with a sensory loss they may not even recognize. They reach for the salt shaker more often than they used to. They stop noticing the smell of coffee in the morning. They apply perfume and forget it's there. These are the quiet signs of olfactory disorder—a condition so overlooked that many people don't realize something has changed until their relationship with food itself begins to shift.
Laura López-Mascaraque, a biologist and president of Spain's Olfactory Network at the Cajal Neuroscience Center, has spent her career studying what most of us take for granted. She describes smell as a powerful sense that operates almost invisibly, woven into memory, emotion, and the way we navigate the world. Yet it remains the most undervalued of our senses, eclipsed by sight and hearing in both medical attention and everyday awareness. The irony is that smell governs far more of our experience than we realize—it shapes how we eat, how we remember, how we feel safe or threatened in our surroundings.
The conditions López-Mascaraque warns about fall into two categories. Hyposmia is a reduction in the ability to smell; anosmia is the complete loss of it. Both can develop gradually, which is precisely why they go undetected for so long. The first clue often comes not from the nose but from the plate. López-Mascaraque points out that roughly 75 percent of what we experience as taste is actually smell. Remove that, and food becomes texture and salt—nothing more. People begin compensating without understanding why, adding more seasoning to meals that suddenly taste flat. They stop noticing the acrid smell of smoke or the warning sign of spoiled food. They douse themselves in cologne or perfume, unaware that their nose has simply stopped reporting what it once did.
Beyond the loss itself, López-Mascaraque describes three distinct phenomena that shape how we experience smell—or fail to. Olfactory adaptation happens almost instantly. Walk into a bakery and within minutes the aroma vanishes from your awareness, even though the smell hasn't changed. Your nervous system has simply stopped signaling it. Olfactory fatigue is a deeper, more prolonged insensitivity that combines this physiological shutdown with the brain's own habituation, a particular burden for people who work with scents all day—perfumers, wine tasters, food critics. Then there is olfactory masking, when one strong smell drowns out another, like an air freshener concealing something unpleasant beneath it.
What makes these conditions especially insidious is that they often develop without fanfare. A person might notice they're using more salt, or that they've stopped enjoying meals they once loved, or that they're applying perfume more liberally because they can't smell it anymore. These are the everyday clues López-Mascaraque urges people to pay attention to. They are the language the body uses to signal that something has shifted in the sensory apparatus most of us never think about until it's gone.
The expert also offers a counterintuitive note: smell can be trained and improved. The capacity is there, waiting to be developed. Yet most people never attempt it, never even consider that their nose might be a skill to cultivate rather than simply a feature they possess. We use our sense of smell constantly, often without conscious awareness, and we neglect it just as unconsciously. The question López-Mascaraque leaves hanging is whether we might begin to pay attention before we lose it entirely.
Citas Notables
It is a very powerful sense even though it is the most silent of all, intervening in processes like eating, rejection, adaptation, and memory recall.— Laura López-Mascaraque, biologist and president of Spain's Olfactory Network
75 percent of flavor comes from smell, not taste, and if you lack it you don't taste your food.— Laura López-Mascaraque
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does smell loss go undetected for so long? It seems like something people would notice immediately.
Because it doesn't announce itself. You don't wake up one day unable to smell. It fades gradually, and your brain adapts before you do. You start adding salt to food, and you think the recipe changed, not that your nose did.
But surely people notice when they can't smell a fire or spoiled milk—things that matter for safety?
Some do, eventually. But many people rationalize it. They think their sense of smell was never that sharp to begin with. Or they're so used to compensating—using their eyes to check if food is good, relying on texture—that they don't connect the dots.
You mentioned that 75 percent of taste is smell. That's a staggering number. How does that change the way someone experiences eating?
It hollows it out. Food becomes mechanical. You can feel temperature, texture, sweetness, salt. But the complexity, the pleasure, the memory tied to a particular dish—that's all smell. Without it, eating becomes fuel, not experience.
Is there a particular moment when someone typically realizes something is wrong?
Usually when they notice they're reaching for the salt shaker constantly, or when someone else comments that their perfume is overwhelming. It's rarely a dramatic moment. It's small, accumulated clues that finally add up.
Can smell loss be reversed, or is it permanent?
It depends on the cause. Some cases improve with time or treatment. But López-Mascaraque's point is different—she's saying most people never even try to train or strengthen their sense of smell. We treat it as fixed, when it might be more malleable than we think.