ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 18, 1997 TAG: 9702180071
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SEATTLE
SOURCE: Associated Press
Knowing this may not make broccoli taste any better, but if you find the stuff disgusting the reason may be in your genes.
Scientists studying people's food preferences are finding a strong inherited tendency to like or reject all sorts of foods - including many that the health gurus say are good for you.
``We can't just assume that people don't follow healthy diets because they don't have the information. Taste plays a big role in what people eat,'' said Valerie Duffy, a nutritionist from the University of Connecticut.
Foods like broccoli, brussels sprouts and mustard greens, which are naturally bitter anyway, can seem unpleasantly so to some because of the taste genes people inherited.
Indeed, it seems the whole world can be split up into three categories - non-tasters, tasters and super-tasters - depending on the intensity of the way they perceive bitterness, sweetness and other taste sensations.
Scientists working in this emerging field of research presented their latest findings Sunday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
``Super-tasting children will probably not like brussels sprouts or broccoli, no matter what you do. The reasons are genetic,'' said Adam Drewnowski of the University of Michigan.
The researchers categorize people by the way they respond to the taste of a thyroid medicine called 6-n-propylthiouracil, or PROP. About 25 percent of Caucasians cannot taste PROP at all, so they are known as non-tasters. Half are considered tasters because they find it mildly bitter. Another 25 percent, the super-tasters, find it grossly bitter.
Women are more likely than men to be super-tasters, and Asians and blacks are more apt than whites to have this trait.
Many foods that are considered healthful, such as the cabbage family, grapefruit and some kinds of roots and berries, are also bitter. While clearly many people develop a taste for strong flavors - even ones that at first seem unpleasant - the researchers wonder if super-tasters might be more likely to avoid bitter foods with possible cancer-fighting properties.
Drewnowski is beginning a study of women with breast cancer to see if there is a link between the disease and inherited food preferences.
Experts assume that at some point in human evolution, being a super-taster might have improved the chance of survival in parts of the world where there were lots of poisonous plants, which tend to taste bitter. Being a non-taster could have been an advantage in safer environments.
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