A really bright light permanently damages your eyes. So a really strong acid could permanently damage your tongue.

I've experienced this with pineapple, specially a lot of freshly peeled pineapple. Some mix of Bromelain and intense sugar muted general flavors and my ability to taste anything sweet for a few hours.

If you eat something too hot without properly letting it cool, you'll burn your tongue and won't taste anything for days

oh yeah, you can totally change your sense of taste of sweet and salty

remove either of these for several weeks and then slowly bring them back and you will find you are far more sensitive to them than previously.

the addiction to high level sweet taste is why dieting is so hard for so many and why sugar substitutes are targetted as an option.

Ageusia is the term for loss of taste.

Traumatic damage to the olfactory nerve can cause of lack of smell but you would also need to damage the tongue for the taste.

You won't do it from eating regular foods, but trying to eat a large enough firecracker might do the trick. It could take out both the tongue and the nerve.

Don't do that though. It would probably blow the jaw off and make you blind as well.

Yeah, temporarily, I think. You ever indulge in a food repeatedly until it stops tasting good? I have, many times. It resets after a while, but the difference, I think, is that the light and sound are actually doing physical damage to your retina and ear follicles / ear drum. You could blow up a fire cracker in your mouth to get that outcome, but that's not what you're asking.

Ghost peppers. Jus munch one piece (don't do it). It will mess up your flavour on the first bite and wish for the sweet release of death (won't come I think) for a long time after.

We used to occasionally have to put our kids on "sugar fast" when they ate too much sweet stuff because they then couldn't taste sweet in lightly sweet stuff. So their palate needed to be recalibrated. I've had to do the same with salt before.

And I am desensitized to spicy things but like that because I can appreciate more foods that way, or more of the ones I tend to like. But surely it's a form of damage.

Corsodyl mouthwash, according to my dentist, is not supposed to be used every day because it can permanently alter your sense of taste. Corsodyl specifically.

Thats only 1 dentist though you'd have to ask the other 9 to know for sure.

There's a specific chemical extract from some berry that makes EVERYTHING taste like Splenda. You can bite into a lemon and it will taste sweet. Lasts a few minutes, fun novelty

Covid

Smoking will make you less sensitive to taste. Still too early to tell on vapes.

Hydrogen sulfide deadens the sense of smell. You can smell it in low concentrations, but not in high concentrations. So it is quite a dangerous gas.

What are you over here wanting to eat?

People here keep listing diseases and chemicals when OP is asking about taste and smell.

Unless you're drinking bleach, food will never destroy your sense of taste. It's the same with smell. There are chemicals that are really smelly and can destroy your nose, but smell ≠ nose destruction.

Or a strong odour break my sense of smell?

I've accidentally knocked out my sense of smell with a bathroom cleaner before. Not enough ventilation while I was scrubbing things, I guess. Came back later in the day, thankfully, but was quite disturbing. I don't recommend it.

Can a really strong flavour break my taste buds?

Not sure exactly about that, but there are compounds that will mess with your sense of taste significantly. e.g. there's a fruit that makes sour things taste sweet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum

Smoke or go into space.

When i smoke too much weed - like as a lifestyle i mean, over the course of months - my sense of smell and thus most of taste pretty much disappears. I had to take a break from being a cupcake taster for an acquaintance because i could not possibly provide useful feedback.

Apparently low-gravity changes how mucus settles (iirc) in such a way that humans have reduced smell and taste in space. Astronauts always want hotsauce in part because everything tastes blander in space.

One flavor is just detecting acid (sour), and so a strong enough sour flavor would chemically destroy your taste buds by basically dissolving them. I think this is fairly similar to the fact that too bright a light will damage the light detection in your eye. I’m not sure about any others tastes or smells though.

Yes, Various injuries and diseases can do that.

And taste too.

you can close your nose shut and wont taste any flavours, except the 5 senses of your tongue wich is neurological. probably trauma or an infection to the nerves of the tongue. chronic nasal allergies can reduce your taste and smell off flavors, if you mean bitter, sweet, sour and salty something .

Chewing a pink peppercorn can KO your ability to taste for like 15 minutes or so, in my experience. Working with ammonia for a little while will also nuke your ability to smell for a while, which is a big part of taste.

Strong mint can absolutely knock out other flavors for a time.

I also knew a guy who had cancer (thyroid? Don’t quote me on that,) that the treatment knocked out his sense of taste. Everything except flour.

Try chewing Aleve.

I suppose, chemically, if you eat something a bit sour you taste it but if it's too sour (PH value too different from the mouth) it might injure?