• Question: Why do we like some foods and not others?

    Asked by mrsrichards to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Natalia, Peta on 18 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      Your tastes are always changing.

      I heard the reason why children tend to dislike bitter things (like coffee) is to discourage them from eating poisonous plants or berries. But when they get older and have learnt what’s poisonous they develop a taste for bitter things.

      But as to what gives you your own personal preferences, I guess familiarity plays a big part?

    • Photo: Peta Foster

      Peta Foster answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      What food tastes like is determined predominantly by our taste buds. We have four groups of taste buds: Sweet, Sour, Salty and Bitter. Different people could have different number of taste buds and therefore will experience tastes as being different in strength.

      Some people have way more taste buds than the rest of us and those people are sometimes called supertasters so i have read. (I don’t think i am one of these people…hehe)

      After your taste buds have been involved then it is down to the brain to interpret the information from the taste buds. It has been found that there are a whole bunch of genes involved in tasting food and having one gene switch on can make one food taste horrible while those in which that gene is switched off find it delicious.

      I think most people have the chocolate gene switched on 😀

    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      I heard about those supertasters too! I think I remember hearing they were also related to what Daniel said about too, “supertasters” are similar to how our ancestors used to taste things long ago, to stop them eating posionous foods.

      Personally, I think it’s also to do with culture – if you are brought up eating certain foods from a very early age then chances are if you don’t like them you may just become acustomed to them?! And then later on in life if you’ve never experienced a food before then the first time you may love it or hate it!

      I’d guess smell has a lot to do with it too, all the senses do seem to be linked in someway.

      And if you believe the guys on master-cheft, the way people present food has an interesting effect on how tasty it is “you eat with your eyes first” kind of sentiment. I guess this is kind of true, if the food looks nice you’ll be more interested in trying it, and more likely to like it?

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