Food Preferences

Factual Questions
1

I love mushrooms and black olives. My girlfriend hates them. She also hates eggs, most styles of beef, and a host of other things. I, in fact, will enjoy just about anything.

Why? Is there some advantage to having a species with varied tastes like this? I would think that it makes more sense for the body to be set up as “good for you = tastes good” and “bad for you = tastes bad” to ensure that the species gets its round of nutrition and isn’t lacking in some vitamin because members don’t like brussel sprouts. Is there some biological component to us (or any other animals) that determines what will be yummy and what will be ignored so we can eat more Ben & Jerry’s?

“I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”

2

This is pretty much a WAG, but it might prevent an entire tribe from being laid low with food poisoning at the same time.

3

The first problem is that you assume that Ben&jerry’s is bad for you. It has become bad for you in our society, simply because toomuch of anything is bad for you. Fat tastes good because it isthe most efficient source of energy, but it has become bad for us because we eat so much of it. Certain other foods probably don’t taste good simply becase the body isn’t really in need of them at that moment.

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

4

I like it that my husband doesn’t like avocados. More guacamole for me. Seems like a good evolutionary tactic, too. “You, UG, can have those berries… I’m taking the durian.”

5

That seems to imply that if I don’t have enough vitamin D, eventually a big ole glass of milk is going to taste better to me than a Snickers bar. Needless to say, this isn’t very true. I don’t think that the body’s need for something has much to do with how well we think it tastes, which was part of my original question.

“I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”

6

It’s like taste in anything - art, music, sexual preference… I can’t tell you why I like the taste of chocolate instead of strawberry, don’t have much of an interest in art, love the sound of a loud distorted guitar riff, and prefer to lay down with members of the opposite sex, I can only tell you I do.

Brian O’Neill
CMC International Records
rockuniverse.com/cmc/cmc.html

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Yahoo Messenger Brian_ONeill

7

Well being a chef who studied nutrition, I have to say that is not what you eat but the society we live in today that makes it bad for you. You see becoming a world of free thinkers instead of hunters like are ancestors evalutin has changed are bodys,
which now burn less calories then before.
If you had to catch all 3 of your meals
Ben & Jerrys x-times a day would not hurt.

8

Well being a chef who studied nutrition, I have to say that is not what you eat but the society we live in today that makes it bad for you. You see becoming a world of free thinkers instead of hunters like are ancestors evolution has changed are bodys,
which now burn less calories then before.
If you had to catch all 3 of your meals
Ben & Jerrys x-times a day would not hurt.

The Chef

9

Then there’s the question of why some tastes change. I’ve always liked my veggies…made my parents very happy. But there were a few that I wouldn’t eat, like radishes and squash. Around age 21, I decided to give squash a second chance, and whaddya know, I liked it. It wasn’t the preparation, either…I tried it my mom’s way, sliced fresh & steamed. I like radishes now too.

It’s not like I was older & had to change my diet for any particular reason. My tastes just suddenly changed on me. I sure hope they don’t change in reverse…I’d be very unhappy if I suddenly started hating Ben & Jerry’s.

10

Your food choices were also made by what you were raised with. If Mama told you to “Eat It!” enough, chances are you’d finally develop a taste for it. I can’t think of any other way I could have developed the occasional desire for boiled okra & tomatoes.

11

Well no, my mom didn’t force me to eat squash, or radishes. I always liked most other veggies, so my mom knew I was getting my vitamins & nutrients from other healthy sources (“You don’t like squash, but you do like brussel sprouts…okay, I can live with that.”) That’s what I’ve never understood. One day, I just decided to taste some squash, and I liked it.

I was recently introduced to okra, by my husband. It tastes good but…that slime thing just grosses me out. My two-year-old loves the stuff, though. But neither she nor my husband can deal with tomatoes. Okay by me. They can eat okra, I’ll eat tomatoes. :wink:

12

How much energy does it take to hunt down a pint of Ben & Jerry’s?

13

I read an interesting article a while back, though I cant remember where I saw it.
Seems some researchers did a study that found womens taste preferences were ‘passed on’ to breast fed babies while bottle fed babies did not show a similar trend. Their hypothisis was that certain flavor coumpounds made it into breast milk and the kids became accustomed to them. I believe the article went on to theroize that this was one of the reasons for cultural differences in food.
Like I said, I cant cite the article beacuse I don’t remember where it was published. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Scientific American… on the other hand I’m positive it wasn’t the Enquirer.

14

IIRC, there is some substance in many vegetables which tastes bitter to some people but that the bitter taste fades as we age. This was offered as an explanation of why kids hate veggies so much and grownups like them. Does anyone else recall hearing about this?

In response to the OP, we need to realize that the widely varied diet available to us today is a very modern phenomenon. Many primitive cultures had a monotonous diet based on indigenous foods. Recall the great explorations mounted in search of spices, and that Roman soldiers were once paid in salt. For most of our prehistory, at least, being fussy about what you ate was not a way to live long and prosper.

“non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem”
– William of Ockham

15

*That seems to imply that if I don’t have enough vitamin D, eventually
a big ole glass of milk is going to taste better to me than a Snickers
bar. Needless to say, this isn’t very true. *

I’d have to disagree. Have you ever eaten rather poorly and exerted your self for an extended period of time, more than a month. I have, twice, with the same results.

Once I was on an archaeological dig in Bulgaria for 7 weeks. back breaking labour to say the least, lot’s o’ pork and no veggies except cucumbers, tomatoes, and oh, cabbage.

I am normally indifferent to cabbage. After 4 weeks of the diet above, I would have great desire to consume 2-3 bowlfuls of cabbage salad at a sitting.

I’ve found that when I become low on nutrients, my body does provide appropriate cravings (for thinks I normally do not like or are indifferent to).

Also, I basically despise Gatorade, exceptfor the few times I have been dehydrated seriously, then it has tasted like the nectar of the gods.

has anyone else had a similar experience?

16

Actually, God (or Nature, if you prefer) DID give us taste buds for a reason, and until a few centuries ago, the taste buds did a pretty good job of leading human beings to the foods that were good for them.

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that the foods human like best are either sweet, fatty or salty. Well, TODAY, of course, we think of sugar, fat and salt as bad things, because 20th century Americans eat too much of those things. But sugar, salt and fat are absolutely essential for good health, and until relatively recently, they weren’t so easy to come by!

A craving for sweets would naturally lead a caveman to eat fruits and berries- a very GOOD thing from a health perspective. A craving for salt led him to salt licks- again, a GOOD thing. A craving for fat made him a more efficient hunter, and would lead him to eat lots of animal fat (again, a GOOD thing for a caveman, who never knew when his next meal would come along).

Well, the problem is, over the centuries, man became a very efficient farmer, and learned to produce far more food than he needed. Worse, he learned to refine sugar and to refrigerate fats! So, if the caveman’s descendants crave sweets, they don’t go foraging for berries- they grab a big bowl of Rocky Road ice cream. If they crave salt, they don’t have to seek out a salt lick, they just grab a bag of Pringles!

Our taste buds aren’t at fault- for milennia, they guided us to just the right foods. The problem is, people got too smart for their tatste buds!

17

I think the United States is the only country in the world where some foods are actually bad for you. We are the fattest country in the world…

There’s some psychological factors to food preference. A can of dog food might disgust you at the thought of eating it. But its edible and the people who try it for dog companies actually love it… People who don’t eat meat might have the moral conscience of taking a life or those thoughts of slaughterhouses in their heads. I hated root bear when I first tasted it, but like other acquired tastes it got better.

Or it could just be that food preference is like another form of personality. You like some people or you hate them at first site.

18

I’ve always hated veggies. I still do. My mom said I ate them as a kid, but I reminded her that she MADE me eat them. My tastes have changed as I’ve grown older, so I thought I’d try veggies again. When i did, I thought I’d puke.

Vegetables are good for me. I wish I’d like them. But there isn’t a single one that I can even tolerate. I’ve tried preparing them in many different ways but nothing works. Thank goodness Greg loves them. He’d rather have 3 helpings of veggies than any kind of sweets. I hope that it stays that way.

MaryAnn
Sometimes life is so great you just gotta muss up your hair and quack like a duck!

19

First I would like to say, even with fatty diets some people dont develop heart attacks and die at 54 :). MY Great grandfather ate for breakfast eggs, sausage or bacon, gravy and biscuits every day.

As for me, i hate anything with a bitter taste. I will not eat radicchio in salads (looks like purple cabbage). Its far too bitter for me. I also dont like raw olives for the same reason (i think they’re bitter. Oh and i have felt the mouth puckering feeling of an un-processed olive), I will eat them cooked because cooking seems to kill some of the taste that makes me gag :).

A lot of cruciferous (brassicacea family) veggies have bitter compounds in them (like broccoli). Cabbages and cabbage-like veggies are in that family.

Some of the things i hated but love are spicy foods. Occasionally i will get a craving for this really good Kim-Chee that a local Korean Market makes and sells. In fact i’m getting that craving now. I also love A1 sauce which i avoided like the plague.

20

Doh! forgot to say how old great-grandpa was when he died: 93. He died of natural causes too. His job BTW was a farmer…