Posted on 11/30/2019 5:21:38 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
If you make a face like a kid swallowing cough syrup at the mere suggestion of Brussels sprouts, you might have the DNA of a “super taster,” a genotype that makes the bitter chemicals in these foods taste practically intolerable, according to recent research to be presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2019 this weekend in Philadelphia.
Everyone inherits two copies of a taste gene called TAS2R38. The particular variants you’re born with determine how sensitive or not you are to bitter tastes from certain chemicals such as glucosinolates, commonly found in cruciferous vegetables like Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and broccoli.
People who inherit two copies of a variant called AVI aren’t sensitive to bitter tastes. Those born with one copy of AVI and one copy of another variant called PAV perceive the bitter tastes of these chemicals, but aren’t necessarily overwhelmed by them. However, people with two copies of PAV, often called “super tasters,” find the same foods exceptionally bitter.
Along with those cruciferous veggie offenders, other foods like coffee, dark chocolate, and beer may also trigger that way-too-bitter taste.
“We’re talking a ruin-your-day level of bitter when they tasted the test compound,” said study author Jennifer L. Smith, Ph.D., R.N., a postdoctoral fellow in cardiovascular science at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine in Lexington, in a press release from her upcoming presentation.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, that day-wrecking bitter perception prevents these super tasters from consuming their daily recommended vegetables.
When the researchers analyzed food-frequency questionnaires from 175 people (average age 52 and more than 70 percent female), they found that the respondents with the PAV genotype were more than two and a half times as likely to rank in the bottom half of participants on the number of vegetables eaten than those without the variant.
(Excerpt) Read more at runnersworld.com ...
I’ve never understood how people can enjoy bitter foods. Now I know why. I’m told I’m an excellent cook, but I’ll never make a gourmet; they seem to love bitter foods. I don’t even like many types of cheese, due to tasting too bitter.
Dark chocolate is the real giveaway, because the odor is not such a confounding factor. I love milk chocolate but will instantly gag and spit out dark chocolate, if I somehow missed the label. Smell is a little different also but not that much.
Buy special dark cocoa powder and stuff it in gelatin capsules. I’ve often thought of doing that, but never have.
I can listen to Valentina Lisitsa playing Hungarian Rhapsody or Amy Turk playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (ON A HARP!)and be moved near to tears, and all mom can say is "She plays fast".
Some folks just don't get it.
She’s choppin’ broccoli - Dana Carvey
Oh, and I LOVE ALL brassicas.
More tax dollars at work. /s
I call bullshit: As a child and young adult I DESPISED those 3 vegetables.
So unless a gene spontaneously-changed due to radiation exposure for me, these researchers should study the long-term effects of cranial/sphincter inversion (this study is one of them).
Sounds like I'm one of these super tasters.
I love bitter everything.
You might be one of the few people on earth interested in a find I made. I wont go through the whole story, the bottom line is that I found a stand of white oaks with surprisingly edible raw acorns. They are ridiculously astringent but once that’s gone the bitter is rather enjoyable. I would say its something like the intensity of chewing an espresso bean to the 10th power. Yknow, if the right people were to twiddle with those a bit to get rid of the astringency then Id bet that those could make quite a high value crop.
I love broccoli and pepperoni pizza. Not quite as much as sauerkraut and bacon but its right up there. If found a number of places over the years that would make it that way. Where I used to live we had two places that would make them. I found it somewhat surprising that a Pizza Hut used to be one of them, well, until the regional manager or some such found out and they were banned from making them. Find yourself a little private company, especially those with salad bars. The kid taking the order might think youre weird but they will make it for you.
When I was stationed overseas the first Portuguese words I learned were "não cebola", no onion.
That slaw recipe sounds great!!!
I’ll have to try it soon...
“If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?”
As a kid I called Brussel sprouts “baby cabbages” and broccoli “tiny trees”.
My mother while a good cook overall, tended to overcook most veggies, cook them to death so today I love broccoli but I like it “lightly” steamed - steamed enough as to not be raw, cooked but yet still have a bit of a crunch and still “green”, but not steamed to the point of becoming a grey stinky mushy mess.
I like Brussel sprouts too, fresh not frozen and especially when roasted with some good olive oil and some balsamic vinegar and sea salt, but like broccoli and cabbage, it can get bitter from overcooking.
Someone mentioned lima beans. I hated them as a kid and still do today. I think it’s more of a texture thing more than the taste. While I do use beans (black and cannellini beans, never kidney beans – I don’t like them either) in my turkey chili, over all I don’t care for beans all that much. I think it’s the texture of the skins I don’t like.
Or peas, especially those big mushy overly salted, slightly grey in color canned peas my mother used to serve. And when my mom made split pea soup using left over ham, it was so thick it could have been used as wallpaper paste. I recall just to get it down took near a half gallon of milk as it was so thick, otherwise it would get stuck halfway down my throat.
And again with the texture, I don’t like raw celery and absolutely hate rhubarb and okra – it’s the stringiness.
And then there was liver and onions. And if my mom made liver and onions and served it with lima beans as she often did, and then tapioca pudding for dessert (again – the texture) it was like being sent to the Third Ring of Hell for me as a kid.
My Mom on liver and onion and lima beans and tapioca pudding night - “You don’t have to have seconds but you must finish everything your plate. You need to be grateful for your food. Don’t you know children are starving in….(name the country or region) who would love to have a meal like this?”
Me – “So can we box this up and send it to them then? I’m willing to make the sacrifice and go to bed hungry if it saves only one life?”
My Mom – “Go to your room!”
Me: “Thank you!”
A trifecta of doom., lol.
Three foods that will get a instant gag reflex from me: Liver, hominy and creamed corn.
tapioca pudding; my dad called it fish eyes and glue.
Thanks.
Some people are that way with cilantro. I had a coworker who, if she accidentally bit into something with cilantro in it, would have a screaming fit and run around frantically looking for a wastebasket to spit it out in. I can’t imagine what it tasted like to her.
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