Do you love eating super-spicy curry that no one else at the table can stomach? Or hate slimy okra even though the rest of your family loves it? According to scientists, there are five reasons why food tastes different to every individual, and not all of them involve our taste buds.
We are all born with a love of sweet foods and a dislike of bitter flavors, but beyond that, the foods we love and the foods we hate can vary wildly. A recent article in the Washington Post laid out the five influences on how people taste food.
1. Genetics: People experience bitter flavors differently, as the combination of bitter receptor genes varies for each person. And almost everyone lacks the ability to detect at least one scent, meaning that the chemical that gives truffles their distinctive odor might strike you as either offensive or earthy. Or you might be among the 25% who can't smell it at all.
2. Experience: Did you know babies are predisposed to liking the foods their mothers ate while they were pregnant and later while breastfeeding? Exposing children to a wide range of foods can start even before they're born.
3. Culture: Not many people like extremely bitter or spicy foods the first time tasting them, but they can come to tolerate and even crave them with repeated exposure and by being around people who enjoy these foods.
4. Gender: Women are more likely to crave sweets and men are more likely to crave salty foods. This should come as no surprise if you've ever seen an advertisement for chocolate.
5. Texture: Although science cannot yet fully explain why, some people simply hate gritty, slimy or creamy foods, no matter their flavor. Case in point: natto, the slippery fermented soybeans pictured above.
Read the full article for more interesting facts about how we experience the taste of food.
• Check it out: Taste buds are just one reason why we love some foods and hate others
Do these factors explain any of your favorite or least favorite foods?
Related: What Do You Do When Taste Buds Clash?
(Image: Anjali Prasertong)
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Comments (19)
I didn't know about babies being predisposed to liking what their mothers ate. Interesting.
I know personally, most foods I dislike is mainly textural. I love the taste of mushrooms but can't do the texture. I love tomatoes but just not uncooked. Things like that.
I think a big part of it is a mental thing though. I know from my experiences with my overly picky husband, when we were dating I fed him so many things he swore he hated. He'd love it and gobble it up until I told him what it was, then he'd stop dead in his tracks and swear it doesn't taste good.
Another factor: People (especially non-foodies) judge different foods by what their general impression of the food is, even if they haven't tried the food in question.
For example, I brought a sardine-salad sandwich in to work.
co-worker: Oh tuna today? Looks good!
me: Actually, it's sardine.
co-worker: EWWWW GROSS IT SMELLS BAD GET IT AWAY
me: but you just said...
Same thing with prunes. So many people think they're gross even though they haven't tried them.
There is also a strangely prevalent preference for white meat chicken over dark. Probably due to the "made with all white-meat chicken" marketing. My roommate once said while food shopping that he thought dark meat was gross, but then later he tried something I made with thighs and say "WOW this chicken is so flavorful!".
This is by far my biggest food-related pet peeve. Just give it a chance before you dismiss it, people.
Also,
The texture of natto didn't bother me the one time I tried it. The spider-web-like mucus strings didn't bother me either. The ammonia taste, however, was truly awful. I've considered that maybe I got a bad batch in my sushi that time, so I'll try it again.
Natto stringy, sticky texture wa sa little annoying but otherwise didn't bother me, but I thought it was 'meh' overall. And since I had it as part of breakfast while in Tokyo, I sure hope it was made properly and the taste just didn't do much for me.
I am currently testing the "experience" part with my year-old son. I ate the best I could while pregnant (I had no craving of any kind and wasn't sick, which helped a lot !). I ate normally while breastfeeding. Now that he can eat almost everything, I cook a wide range of veggies, fruits, meat, fish and cereals for him, and it's a pleasure to see how much he loves it. I have not yet met a veggie he doesn't like (though I know this will come later on). It's a great reward as a mom !
I have an acquired dislike for processed food. I was raised by a mom who cooked almost every meal, I cook a lot myself, and I am always wondering what the food industry put in the prepared food I see to make it look like that. And prunes are delicious ! Here in France, there was a "national disaster" last year when the famous mirabelles (yellow prunes) from the East of the country suffered from heavy rain and lack of sun. No yellow prunes last year, we are looking forward to this year !
I LOVE natto -- soongtype, definitely sounds like you got a bad batch. It should taste kinda meaty -- not ammonia! It's a classic of the Japanese "umami" sensation.
Japanese folks never expect the gaijin to like natto, but they take a special delight when we do!
Oh, and there's the "history of food" also. White bread was considered reserved for the richest persons, as it was harder to make. Nowadays, we know dark bread is much healthier, but people keep on buying white bred because it feel more luxurious. I'm strangely looked at when I enjoy my pumpernickel !
Yes! Now if only people (this blog included) stop trying to get others to eat/drink certain items. My biggest pet peeve is when people try to push so-called "good" beer on me. I find most beer to be absolutely repulsive. I've tried a wide variety and after being a legal drinker for 10 years I know that I like Bud Light as it is one of the few beers which I do not find to be extremely bitter. I will order Bud Light because I do not care to waste my money, time or calories on something I'm probably not going to like. Beer snobs can eff off.
s00ngtype,
You said one of my favorite things like that- prunes and raisins. I can't tell you how many people turn their noses up to prunes and raisins but if you said dried plums and grapes they are happy to eat away! So strange how we are so affected by that sort of thing.
I usually exercise A LOT and crave salty foods. Recently I had an injury and had to totally stop exercising for a few months. My tastes totally changed... I stopped craving salty foods, in fact salt tastes disgusting. And I don't like the dark, hop-less beers that I used to. Now all I want are sweets and spicy things.
I'm not surprised by the mother's diet thing...My mom was a vegetarian while she was pregnant with me, and as a kid I HATED meat. I would only eat chicken....well, super processed chicken. It was not hard for me to become a vegetarian when I was in 9th grade. I'm nearly 26 and don't miss it at all.
eminthekitchen,
It's funny how your tastes changed with a change in physical activity, and it makes me wonder how our tastes change with changes with our bodies. A lot of transplant patients have different cravings after they have had surgery. A family friend was straight as an arrow, never liked alcohol and after a partial bowl transplant, likes a beer every now and then. My dad got a double transplant, and since then he likes spicy food and avoids chocolate. Which is a vast change from eating an entire bag of chocolates in a matter of hours and finding mild Pace salsa to be too hot.
Kids in the womb can influence their mothers, too! My aunt has five kids (last two were twins - oy!) and with her first child, she craved a lot of salty things when she was pregnant (yes, it was a boy) and that kid grew up to prefer potato chips and other salty snacks to anything sweet. The second child she craved a lot of sweets (a girl) and that child was an incredibly picky eater throughout childhood and into adulthood. The third kid she made a vow to eat better and... lo and behold - that little girl would rather eat an apple than candy or chips.
So while moms definitely affect their children's tastes based on what they eat when pregnant, I think sometimes the kids already know and that's why women get such bad cravings for certain foods.
Myself? For some reason I can't stand the texture of raw fish and I hate the smell and taste of raw green peppers (though I will sometimes eat them cooked). I also love cooked broccoli and cabbage, but hate them raw. And anything jellied that tastes like meat or is salty? Ew. But I think most Americans have that last food prejudice. :)
tuna noodle casserole. yuk. gag. a mother's cruelty.
I've heard the genetics thing before, and it explains my dislike of cilantro. My father, brother, and I all hate cilantro and to us it tastes like soap, but my mother loves it, and says it tastes completely different.
I'm a super un-picky eater, basically the only things I don't like are because of their texture, although it's not slimy foods but rather mealy, gritty things like apples or water chestnuts. I'll still eat them, I just don't like them much.
I am on the genetics side of things. While I adore cilantro, I can't stand beets (taste like dirt, 'nuf said), coffee (even though I have gotten used to and even enjoy the smell since the hubster is a coffee drinker), and grapefruit (when I taste it, I have an involuntary grimace to the bitterness, which makes the people around me laugh). On the other hand, I have loved spicy foods ever since I first tried them (hot banana peppers at my Hungarian grandmother's table) and can to this day, match almost anyone spicy food for spicy food (even though, aside from the Hungarian grandmother, my background is Norwegian and Welsh, hardly the bastions of spicy food).
A German expert on nutrition always says that if you don't like something there is a good chance you can't tolerate it very well - raw paprika for example can be difficult to digest for some people, so they don't like it to start with.
But I second the pregnancy thing, I ate normally during pregnancy with a lot of Indian and Thai food in between German and Italian, and my kids love the taste of spices and herbs - but not necessarily all the veggies I ate. My daughter for examples hates all kinds of cabbage, and I think that they might taste more bitter to her than to me.
My son seems to buck the trend. He eats a wider variety of foods than I do. e.g. I don't eat seafood and he loves it!
I definitely have noticed the experience part! Example 1: My mom had insatiable cravings for lemons while pregnant with me, and ever since I was old enough to eat a lemon it has been my very most favorite food ever! I just LOVE the extreme sour flavor, especially with salt yummy!
Example 2: While pregnant with my (now 15 month old) daughter I couldn't eat meat, so I mostly had fresh fruit and vegetables, couldn't have anything artificially sweetened either. She has never really liked meat, only recently has she starting actually eating some of her chicken when I give it to her, she really loves vegetables and fruit though! Only kid I know who will eat plain spinach with a smile =)
I work in a fast food place and the most common thing that people hate are green peppers. Whenever I try to serve some chicken dish which has peppers in them, they tell me to try not to get peppers. It sorta annoys me. There's really not a whole lot of food that I dislike. I can eat just about anything. There are vegetable that I don't care much for but I can eat them without taking it out of whatever I'm eating. I was taught at a young age to eat all my greens to get proper nutrients and to also not waste food, so I'll eat anything. I actually like trying food with weird texture. I love Natto. I miss eating that.