Human Senses 1. Smell and Taste (7 of 21)

Human Senses

Do you like alcohol?
Urm Do you like er bitter vegetables?
urm Well we know a little bit about why that is.
You don't like alcohol because it's both bitter and burns your tongue more than it would that of a non taster.
And you don't like bitter vegetables because super tasters are particularly responsive too bitter.
About 1 in 4 people are super tasters.
With their sensitive tongues they tend to be much pickier about what we eat.
Because things do genuinely taste different too them.
So look at how differently a non taster and then a super taster react to a bitter chemical.

So each of us has a built in limit to how strong tasting we like our food.
As we grow up we learn to become more and more adventurous.
But it takes time.
As we try things we gradually discover that even though some foods taste bitter or sour, they're not actually poisonous.
Gradually we start to acquire a taste for all sorts of things that we once found disgusting.
It 's an astonishing transformation.
We don't just tolerate things that we hated as children; we end up really really loving them.
As adults we override our childhood reaction that bitter and sour are bad.
It means that we can relish virtually anything.
But for each of us there's one ultimate limit.
We've all done it.
If you eat something that makes you sick, that puts you off that food sometimes for life.