Genes May Be a Factor in How We Taste Sugar

Christine Gallary
Christine GallaryFood Editor-at-Large
Christine graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France, and she has worked at Cook's Illustrated and CHOW.com. She lives in San Francisco and loves teaching cooking classes. Follow her latest culinary escapades on Instagram.
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published Jul 28, 2015
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Just as some people have the genes that make them more sensitive to bitter flavors, scientists have discovered that the same applies to one of the other tastes: sweet.

Researchers asked subjects, both twins (with the idea that twins have at least half to almost all of the same genes) and non-twins, to rate the sweetness intensity of two natural and two artificial sugars. They concluded that genetics account for about 30 percent of the variance in how people perceived the sweetness level, making some people more sensitive to sweetness than others.

Now that they’ve figured out the relationship between bitter and sweet perception genes, they hope to move on to sour and salt. Are you ready to find out if your genes might be able to explain why you like or dislike something?

→ Read more: The Gene For Sweet: Why We Don’t All Taste Sugar The Same Way from NPR – The Salt