Bad Aftertaste Why does it Linger and How to Get Rid of It

Aftertaste. It can be so gross.  Even if you loved the food that you ate or drank prior to the aftertaste, the aftertaste can be super annoying. And it's not just aftertaste.  Some foods can linger on your hands too.  Especially onions.  Like red onions.  I could chop one of those up and wash my hands several times afterwards and they will STILL smell like onions. It's crazy.

I did a little research and found that the biggest culprits of the "stank" are exactly what you thought they would be - garlic and onions.

Why are these foods so pungent and is there anything we can do to stop it?  Some of the reason that the aftertaste is there is really a little gross.  This is from Time.com:

Cordelia Running, director of the Saliva, Perception, Ingestion and Tongues (SPIT) lab at Purdue University, says that aftertastes are generally caused by “little bits of the actual flavor stimuli that might hang around”: physical remnants of food that get caught in the mouth, for example, or molecules that remain in the saliva or mucus.

So, you'd think the obvious thing that you could do would be to just brush your teeth or at least use some mouthwash, or both.  But as you'd probably guessed, that doesn't always work.  Why?

Apparently those foods can move into the blood stream. What??  Yeah.  You're bloodstream.

Potent foods, such as garlic and onions, may cause an even lengthier aftertaste because molecules associated with their taste and scent can get into the bloodstream and circulate throughout the body, Running explains. Once they’re in the blood, the substances “can ooze out through the fluids between your cells,” Running says, getting into saliva and sweat and potentially contributing to a lasting taste or smell. 

Ok.  Gross.  But the positive on that one, is that I have also learned that the garlic that may be "oozing out your cells" can also help to keep mosquitoes away.  So, that can be counted as a win.  So, just use a breath mint.  You may have to just wait it out, unfortunately.