Jess Loren remembers loving the taste of Cap'n Crunch cereal. Coca-Cola. Snickers bars. But now, instead of a sweetness, "they taste bland," she says. Flavors are noticeably muted since she started a ...

A chemical in the vegetable called cynarin latches on to the sweet receptors on your tongue without activating them. If you drink water after eating artichokes, the cynarin molecules wash away from ...