Genetics
It is important to remember human taste buds evolved for our survival. Our enjoyment of sweetness can be linked to ripe fruit, as they are a good source of energy and nutrients. Our love for fatty foods makes perfect sense due to the energy dense properties, and spending thousands of years hunting for food. Salt also comprises essential minerals for our survival. It is no coincidence modern food companies load their products with sugar-fat-salt combos. But we don’t like all foods, why haven’t we evolved so Brussels taste better than burgers? Why is it highly nutritious vegetables that often top the dislike list?
Evolution aided us by developing an instinctive dislike for certain foods for our safety. We tend not to like bitterness because the bitter taste usually signifies something toxic. Back in the Paleolithic era, this was an evolutionary advantage, because it guided us away from toxic plants; today, it’s not so great, because it makes vegetables (especially the textbook ones like broccoli and kale) taste rather repulsive to some. This aversion to bitterness is strongest in children, and generally fades as we get older, but there is evidence to support some people may even be “supertasters” who have heightened taste to foods – especially foods classed as bitter.
Before you claim that you are programmed not to like those vegetables, genetics play a far smaller role than you would imagine for these common foods. Firstly, less than 25% of the population are thought to have enhanced taste, and it is a spectrum, where not all supertasters dislike vegetables. Secondly, it’s not just vegetables that supertasters dislike; it may typically be accompanied with a dislike for coffee, alcohol, and cheese to name a few. There is also research on-going to investigate if there are sweet and bitter supertasters. Lastly, studies have been carried out on identical twins and found vast differences in food preferences where there have been different upbringings, further supporting the small role genetics play. If you are still convinced you are a supertaster there are a couple of tests (1 – free or 2 – costs) you can do to find out for sure.
Other studies have demonstrated that what your mother eats while pregnant can influence the food you like. A study gave expecting mothers carrot juice in the last trimester and a different breastfeeding group the same juice during lactation. A control group had no carrot intake during pregnancy or lactation. Later during weaning, those babies’ mothers who were given the carrot juice ate much more carrot juice and cereal, as well as displaying less negative emotions compared to the control group. However, it could be argued that this is a form of early food exposure rather than genetics as technically you are already alive and consuming the foods.
Exposure Frequency
Exposure is my number one concern when it comes to fussy eaters. Fussy eating parents will be more likely to produce fussy eating children, creating a vicious cycle that is harder and harder to break. The major concern being that each generation’s nutrient intake would become less and less as their food intake is comprised of other foods, which are typically not as healthy as vegetables. Studies with children have shown that the optimal number of times to try a food before you can decide if you like it or not is 15. This is arguably the most important factor in liking a food, by simply consuming lots of it. Today’s society can be really fickle about food and put off for life by the slightest negative association. Something could be too mushy, look funny, smell funny or squeak in your teeth and that is enough, banished to never try again pile. The truth is, many of us would probably enjoy the taste of some foods if we were blindfolded and not told what it was, only to then feel sick when informed it was some sort of testicle. And it has been suggested that vomiting and/or gastrointestinal issues caused by foods should be the only reason to dislike a food and will eventually like all other foods if eaten enough.
Social Factors
Where and how you have been brought up has undoubtedly huge impacts on the foods you eat and learn to like. I recently watched a documentary about a small Pacific island, Okinawa, where 72-years of age ladies caught countless highly venomous seas snakes in dark caves, with their bare hands, to make their favourite soup. The diet of the small community also comprised of a lot of seaweed, fish, and pig’s ears. This food intake may not sound the most appealing, but before you pass judgement, the same island has 457 inhabitants over the age of 100, still active. As the old Okinawan saying goes, “At 70 you are still a child, at 80 a young man or woman. And if at 90 someone from Heaven invites you over, tell him: ‘Just go away, and come back when I am 100.’”
The vide0 (above), from the movie Inside Out, can be used to highlight cultural differences. The same scene had to be edited, swapping in green peppers, for countries like Japan as the children consider broccoli to be a delicious vegetable, the equivalent of something like peas or carrots in the UK. Actually, more worryingly like crisps and sweets for the young kids of the UK! Geographical location matters because of the available foods and different societies, especially where you grew up in your early years. It could simply be that you were exposed to local delicacies or common foods from a young age, therefore, grew up to like them.
When a toddler hits the terrible twos, a transition occurs from the ability to eat anything to becoming neophobic – that is, you don’t like a new food. Therefore, if you haven’t already been exposed to a certain flavour by the time you hit this transition, whether, through amniotic fluid, breast milk or solid food, chances are you won’t like it. Parents can be forgiven for thinking their child doesn’t like a particular food, but it’s actually anything new that they don’t like. Parents typically stop trying to feed their child that food for their sanity, safety, and nobody likes food on the curtains! The kid ends up thinking they hate that food for years to come. Yet, perseverance will usually result in any food being liked.
Summary
In only a few generations, we have gone from eating what we were given to being spoiled by the abundance of choice and perfectly formed vegetables. We have become far too westernised. I always find it strange how we find a piece of flesh, say a steak, juicy and appealing yet the thought of brains, liver or kidneys disgusting. We are being brought up differently, where we are now spoiled, in choice and alternatives when we don’t like something.
For the most part, our food preferences are learned, though we have a predisposition to like certain tastes. The younger and more frequently we are exposed to new a taste then the chances of liking that food greatly increase. The good news is you do not have to move to Japan in order to like broccoli, anything that we are taught or trained can equally be untaught or untrained, including which food we like and dislike. The bad news is you have to want to change, as you will have to eat the foods you dislike. We are too often confused in thinking we eat foods because we like them; in reality, we like foods because we eat them. There are several ways to expand our food preferences, I am going to put them to the test, by starting with the basic and most important one.
Over the next few months, I am going to conduct an experiment where I expose myself to 5 foods I do not like, 15 times. By this I mean eat a portion on a regular basis and not the late night wolf mask exposure. I have derived a scale of 0-10, where 0 = initiates spew, 10 = exquisite) and my 5 foods range from 1-5 (cowk/gag reflex to neutral) It’s important to note these are foods I truly do not enjoy the taste or have never really eaten, however, a crucial factor being I want to like all of these. Follow the results in my next blog and feel free to get involved.
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