Have you ever been out to eat with a friend, had them try a bite of your favorite dish and they absolutely hated it? Don’t be offended, you may be buds but you don’t have the same taste buds.
Chris Macias, a Sacramento Bee food critic, writes, “Sensitivity to taste is as unique as a fingerprint.”
Basically, even if you eat the same thing, you may not taste the same things your friend does.
Let’s talk big words for a minute. Phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, is what gives certain vegetables a bitter taste. The thing is, not everyone can taste PTC. People who have an aversion to produce such as kale, arugula, broccoli, cauliflower and radishes most likely have a gene called TAS2R38 which allows them to perceive that bitter taste. If you can’t taste the bitterness in cruciferous vegetables, you have what scientists like to call “bitter blindness.”
We can thank our deep-rooted genetics for certain cravings in our diet. Our great-great-great-ancestors (think cavepeople) had very sharp bitter receptors to detect if a plant was inedible or even poisonous. They also innately sought out more caloric foods, which happened to be fatty, sweet and salty. Scientists say that’s why people crave those foods today.
The Sweet Truth
Chris Simons, a professor of sensory science at The Ohio State University, is an expert on the topic. While working toward his Ph.D at the University of California, Davis, he was connected to an advisor who had a keen interest in spicy foods. Simons soon began working on correlations between genetics and spicy tastes and found the intersection of food science and human behavior fascinating.
Simons is a firm believer in the concept of a sweet tooth, and says he has one himself.
“We’re all born with a sweet tooth,” Simons says. “It goes back to our genetics with cavepeople. It’s true that some people have a stronger sweet tooth than others based on their genetics.”
He recently worked on a study that found people with fewer sweet receptor proteins in their taste buds are less sensitive to sweets, and, as a consequence, need higher sugar concentrations to perceive that same level of sweetness and enjoyment.
If you’re the kind of person who dumps six stevia packets into your morning coffee, you may just have fewer sweet receptors.
There are also cultural and environmental components to having a sweet tooth. Different cultures have different optimal levels of sweetness. For example, compared to American chocolate, you’ll find a higher concentration of cocoa in European chocolate, where the population prefers a less sugary, almost acrid taste.
Cilant-no
Cilantro is one herb that elicits a significant reaction from tasters. Famous chef Julia Child insisted it tasted of soap – a strange, but accurate, description many people agree with. For those who think a mouthful of cilantro tastes like Dove bodywash, the issue stems from a variation of olfactory-receptor genes. It’s a quirk found in only a small percentage of the population, though East Asians have one of the highest aversions to cilantro.
Gee, Thanks Mom
What your mother ate during her pregnancy may have affected your culinary likes and dislikes. NPR says that, at 21 weeks after conception, a developing baby is surrounded by a fluid flavored by the foods and drinks its mother has eaten.
“A lot of food preferences are established when a child is a fetus,” Simon says. “If they are exposed to a broad diet while the mom is pregnant, they have a wider range of taste.”
A study conducted at the Monell Chemical Senses Center had a group of pregnant women eat a surplus of carrots while another group avoided the vegetable altogether. The babies who had experienced carrot in their mother’s amniotic fluid or mother’s milk were more likely to eat carrot-flavored baby food.
However, many experts say that babies are rarely born with taste preferences. It’s mostly about exposure and learned behavior.
Picky Eater
The question is, can we blame genetics for picky eaters?
“There appears to be a genetic component on a couple of different levels,” Simon says. “Especially if you’re a supertaster.”
While the label sounds like the name of a Marvel hero, it’s not quite as exciting. Thanks to genetics, some people – approximately 20 percent of the population – have more taste buds than others. Supertasters are sensitive to everything; sweet, salty and bitter. This is how people become picky eaters.
“You can learn to like food, though,” Simon insists. “People learn to like coffee and beer, even though they are bitter. Why? Because of the positive effects that come with them.”
Similarly, your body reacts positively to the affects of eating healthful foods like fruits and vegetables. It just takes longer to reap these benefits compared to something as quick as a sugar rush.
Mallory Arnold is an editor. Feedback welcome at marnold@cityscenemediagroup.com.
