If certain vegetables have always made you choke, you may be more than a picky eater. Instead, you may be what scientists call a super-taster, an individual with a genetic predisposition to taste food differently. Unfortunately, being a super-taster does not make everything taste good. It can do exactly the opposite. Super-tasters are exceptionally sensitive to bitterness, a common feature of many dark green, leafy veggies such as cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage, to name a few.

The individual who has that genetic propensity gets more of the sulfur flavor of, say, Brussels sprouts, especially if theyve been overcooked, as stated by Professor Valerie Duffy of the University of Connecticut, an expert in the study of food taste, consumption and preference. So that bitter vegetable is disliked, and because people oversimplify, soon all vegetables are disliked, Duffy further added. If you ask people, do you like vegetables? They dont usually say, Oh yes, I dont like this, but I like these others. People tend to either like vegetables, or they dont like it completely. People with the bitter gene are 2.5 times more prone to eating fewer vegetables than people who do not have that gene, as per recent research presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association. We wanted to know if genetics affected the capability of people who require to eat heart-healthy foods from eating them, as stated by study author Jennifer Smith, a registered nurse who is a postdoc in cardiovascular science at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine. While we didnt see any results in gene type for sodium, saturated fat or sugar, we did see a difference in vegetables, Smith said, adding that individuals with the gene tasted a ruin-your-day level of bitterness.

Food scientists are trying to develop ways to decrease the bitterness in veggies, in the hopes that we can keep another generation of super-tasters from rejecting vegetables. Theres been some level of success. In fact, the Brussels sprouts we eat today are much sweeter as compared to those our parents or grandparents ate. Dutch growers in the 90s searched their seed archives for older, less bitter varieties, and then cross-pollinated them with todays high-yielding varieties.

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Your hatred for heart-healthy veggies might be genetic - SellRegular