The Genetic Reasons Why You Love (or Hate) Certain Foods

Weird History Food is getting into the Genetic Reasons Why You Like Certain Foods. Here's some good news for picky eaters: genetic dispositions cause you to enjoy the taste of certain foods but not others. If some cultural food choices seem baffling to you, that's normal. Why do people eat what they eat? Why does something you eat taste completely different to someone else of a different race or ethnicity? Of course, taste can also be influenced by things that happen during your upbringing or by disease risk factors coded into DNA. Mainly, though, it's a mixture of many of these.

#foodhistory #spiceeats #weirdhistoryfood

[DustyTheDog]

I'm allergic to capsaicin. Like actually allergic, I get a rash and swell badly when I come into contact with it. It makes eating out, or anything pre-packaged, really hard for me. Generic ingredients like "spices" usually include something I can't have. It really sucks. I get made fun of and people even try to "prove me wrong" by shoving spicy food in my face or tampering with my food, since they assume I just don't like the heat or spicy foods. Not that at all. I will actually die if I eat it. It's what scares me the most. I've had coworkers try to poison me, to see if I am just overexaggerating, and they got away with it because people just don't believe I really am allergic. It's scary. Imagine if I, or anyone, did this to someone claiming a peanut allergy. Everyone would be right on their side immediately.

[p.l.g]

I like how you pointed out that experience has an impact. I enjoy sardines. When I was very young, my grandfather was told to eat them for health purposes, and he'd share them with me. Since they're "Grandpa food, " I enjoy them greatly without actually liking the flavor all that much.

[Hexsyn]

So wanted to chime in with an odd personal experience. I had always been one of the soap cilantro people until covid knocked out my taste for a while. It fully recovered, but afterwards I found that cilantro just tastes fresh and grassy now, which is how others have described it!

[mattm]

This reminded me about the myth that was taught to me in school how you taste different flavors on different regions of your tongue- this is simply not true.

[andrewbatts]

As a child people thought me very strange as I wasn't a huge fan of sweets. I in fact had what people called a green tooth as I loved vegetables of all kind(except raw tomatoes). Any parents of friends who had me over for dinner loved the fact that I had seconds and thirds of vegetables (unless they were mushy, can't stand mushy vegetables)

[thehangmansdaughter]

I have a cousin with celiac disease, which we only discovered while she was overseas. We had to get her a medi-vac flight, from a jungle in South America, because she was bleeding into her bowel. It was so bad she had to have part of her lower bowel removed. She was only 19. Poor kid.

[taymck]

PTC is soooo bitter! We did a PTC taste test in high school and wow - about 10 of us could taste it, while the other 20 couldn’t taste it at all.

Oddly enough, I love bitter and sour foods: lemons, grapefruit, broccoli, brussel sprouts etc.

I’m probably a super-taster as well as I’ve always been able to eat something and pick out individual flavours/ingredients as well, even tiny amounts of spices and herbs, which comes in handy when attempting to recreate dishes I’ve eaten while travelling.

[amyhill]

I'm 50 years old and was diagnosed as a manic depressive since 2002. My serotonin level practically has to be shipped in. I have absolutely no problem differentiating tastes

[ashleyj]

I got addicted to hot peppers as a teen. My brother got a jar of pickled jalapenos & we were eating them on top of rold gold pretzels. We were like, "AAAAHHRG THIS SUCKS!" but an hour later we were both back for more. 😅

[rumblebars]

Then there's the aromatic sister of taste... in the nose. A bad concussion robbed me of my sense of smell a few years ago, which really diminished my enjoyment of foods. I can still taste the big four (SSSB) and I'm not quite convinced if umami counts, but it's just not the same without the olfactory. Anosmia sucks.

[wummyworm]

I have a pretty extreme example of this. I have a rare metabolic disease, called Citrin Deficiency. It's a urea cycle disorder that is due to a lack of the protein Citrulin in my body, which is required to break down carbohydrates. So, I don't like carbs! I've never been able to handle super sweet foods, don't like bread, and so on. Because the body is awesome, it also gives me an affinity for fat, since your body uses fat for energy after carbohydrates! So, although I don't like bread, if I lather butter on it, I can eat the buttery parts at least. So, carbohydrates make me very sick, but unlike someone with Celiac who may still crave gluten-containing foods, I don't even like high-carb foods. This makes self-management of the condition very easy, because my food preferences fall into the ratio of protein:fat:carb that I am supposed to have!

[LauranCHB]

For me, it's more about texture than taste

[michaeldufresne]

There is a difference between lactose intolerance and being allergic to milk

[christopherdieudonne]

I have the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap and yet, I still like it.

[kylehammond]

I just got Covid for the first time last week and I’m upset to find that anything vinegar smells like rubbing alcohol. I noticed it when I put habanero hot sauce on my eggs and could hardly taste any spice but mostly tasted rubbing alcohol. After I was disappointed with the only meal I forced myself to eat I cleaned the kitchen. We use distilled white vinegar for our kitchen surfaces and that’s when I figured it out. I thought I grabbed the wrong spray bottle at first. It’s disappointing because vinegar is one of my favorite flavors, such as pickles or salt and vinegar chips or sweet and sour soup, sauerkraut etc.

[rsokol]

Super funny both times I was pregant I craved foods I never liked before. Most recently, I craved shrimp and fish(hated it since I was a kid) and now I like it. Oh hormones!

[someguy]

The savory flavor called umami was discovered from tasting seaweed, and not meat. Meat and cheese do have umami, but so do mushrooms, miso, edemame, nutritional yeast, kimchi, and tomato products. I don't miss animal products since I eat a lot of plant based umami.

[evolancer]

Grateful Vietnamese dairy lover here!! So glad I'm not lactose intolerant lol

[hayeonkim]

Thanks for useful and valuable video as always ❤❤❤

[thaisgregorio]

Would you guys consider making a video about how our sense of smell affects our sense of taste? I feel like I have a very sensitive nose and that prevents me from liking a bunch of things other people like, because I think they smell bad. For exemple: I can't stand the smell of coffee, alcoholic beverages, onions, beef...