# Why do food preferences exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 23, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387 "2007-02-23T15:39:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Risha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5fc32e/32.png) [@Risha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Risha)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/1 "2007-02-23T15:39:18Z")
I just posted in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=409584) about how I’ve always been an extremely fussy eater. One particular hate of mine is chicken, which usually gets a “Wha?” reaction from most people. So why does 99.99% of the population love chicken while I have always loathed the taste? There doesn’t seem to be any real evolutionary advantage to disliking a food that won’t harm you. ---
**Author:** ![essell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/34f0e0/32.png) [@essell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/essell)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/2 "2007-02-23T15:50:10Z")
Most people would hesitate to eat other people, but we can show examples of times it happens to stay alive. Therefore I’m sure I could put you in a situation where you’d eat the chicken. We’re just lucky enough to have the choice now and you know it. Evolution can’t be stopped or controlled but we do have control enough to prevent certain traits from being a factor in evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/3 "2007-02-23T15:51:22Z")
It really doesn’t make sense to not like any sort of food that is not harmful evolutionary wise. That being said there are a lot of foods I do not like. I do not like fish. Fish. Fish is a staple food of the WHOLE world. Evolutionary wise I should like fish but it taste fishy to me and I don’t like that taste. Chicken really doesn’t have any real flavor to it for me so I always have seasonings or a sauce with it, but I also put some kind of sauce on pretty much everything. Sauce is good. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/4 "2007-02-23T17:49:54Z")
I have a friend who will eat boneless, skinless chicken breast but wont eat chicken off the bone. He says it’s too graphic. How does one go their whole life with out eating Popeye’s spicy combo #3? ---
**Author:** ![Spiral\_Stairs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Spiral\_Stairs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiral_Stairs)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/5 "2007-02-23T17:55:32Z")
One thought is that – at least in places like New Jersey – there is no evolutionary disadvantage to being picky, because food is plentiful. Picky eaters will not die any more often than non-picky eaters. So, to the extent that genetic mutations could affect the “pickiness” of our tastes, a “non-picky” mutation is not more likely to propagate than a “picky” mutation. (You might not find as much pickiness, or food preference, in areas where (or in times when) food is scarce. People who have some kind of extreme “pickiness” mutation will be quickly weeded out and will not propagate their mutation.) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/6 "2007-02-23T17:59:34Z")
Responding more to the thread title than to the specifics of chicken, I’d say that food preferences are based on: 1. the varieties of foodstuffs available near where we live 2. the general cooking methods near where we live 3. the peculiarities of choices made and methods used by whomever prepares food for us when we are young 4. the way that new foods are presented to us after we have developed our “basic” preferences by way of 1-3 above 5. our own peculiar tastes Even with the isolationism involved in forming our “basic tastes” those individual preferences probably involve a willingness to experiment. My brother has a much broader range of tastes than I do, as well as a more educated sense of taste. Those differences suggests to me that even if we are from similar geographical and cultural roots, the desire to broaden one’s tastes is a big factor – maybe the biggest. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/7 "2007-02-23T18:03:31Z")
If you go into every culture in the world you will find that every possible food is used by someone somewhere as a regular dish or a delicacy. Yet huge numbers of those foods will disgust members of other cultures. So it’s all cultural. The earth is so teeming with potential food sources that people can pick and choose which ones are pleasing to them. If an individual doesn’t like a popular food, several effects may be at work. 1. Some personal experience, remembered or not, that turned them off the food. 2. Some personal quirk of taste sensitivity. Some people are [super-tasters](http://www.afic.org/Taste%20Matters.htm): > [@](#): > > When your child, patient or co-worker balks at eating spinach or broccoli, put it down to bad taste. You may be dealing with a “super taster” whose taste buds are highly tuned into - and turned off by - bitter compounds found in foods such as pungent vegetables, grapefruit juice, wine, green tea and strong coffee. > > “About 25 percent of the population are genetically programmed to be super tasters who sharply detect bitter compounds in food,” said Dr Adam Drewnowski, Director of the Nutritional Sciences Program at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, and an expert on taste and food choices. “Half of the population detects these compounds to some degree and another 25 percent don’t detect them at all.” > > What makes super tasters so bitterly sensitive to foods? Compared to their less discriminating colleagues, super tasters’ tongues are packed with many more fungiform papillae, the little bumps on the tongue that house the taste buds. About two-thirds of super tasters are female and the sensitivity often fades with age. One theory is that, in years gone by, super tasting served as a survival mechanism. “Perhaps the characteristic discouraged pregnant women from eating poisonous plants or berries, which tend to taste bitter,” said Drewnowski. 1. It may be related to early experiences. From that same article: > [@](#): > > Our first flavour experiences are sweet ones, said Dr Gary Beauchamp, Director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, University of Pennsylvania, USA. “A variety of tastes and odours are transmitted through amniotic fluid to the foetus,” said Beauchamp. “Unborn infants appear to detect sweetness and newborns clearly sense and enjoy sweet tastes.” > > Infants seem to experience the other primary tastes to varying degrees. The ability to detect bitter, salty and umami tastes continues to develop throughout the first few months of life. The sour taste is at least somewhat developed at birth but it’s not clear whether further changes occur as infants get older. > > Breast-fed infants receive early exposure to a variety of flavours because breast milk carries the flavour of foods and spices eaten by the mother. Whether these and other early taste experiences affect food preferences later in life is the subject of ongoing research at the Monell Center. 1. It may be part of aging: > [@](#): > > At about age 60, even healthy people begin to experience a modest decline in taste and more dramatic declines in smell. “Taste and smell changes in the elderly result from normal aging, medications, certain illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease, radiation therapy and even environmental factors such as pollution,” according to Susan Schiffman, Professor of Medical Psychology at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, USA. “It’s difficult to separate out an exact cause of these declines.” 1. It may be an ongoing problem with the taste and smell apparatus in the body. 2. It may be sheer stubbornness or unconscious rebellion. ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/8 "2007-02-23T18:20:19Z")
I have always required/suggested that my kids at least try a small taste of any new food. This started when they were toddlers and continues to today (they are 11 & 16). They have always cooperated with my “rule” and in exchange, once they try it they can then decline that food forever. We also discuss food; what kind of plant/animal it is, etc. Turns out they both have pretty refined palates. I have taken them for sushi, for instance, and people around us are amazed that they are so into the cuisine. When my daughter was about 4 years old, she was eating a slice of bacon in a restaurant. She paused, looked at the bacon, and said (in a philosophical tone of voice), “Wow, it is hard to believe something this good is from a pig.” 😉 None of this answers the OP, but I find it interesting comparing my kids’ food preferences with other children of the same age. ---
**Author:** ![VernWinterbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c67d28/32.png) [@VernWinterbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VernWinterbottom)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/9 "2007-02-23T18:51:35Z")
I think some parents might pass on their own pickiness to their kids. We always bought every variety of vegetable, fruit and meat baby food for our daughter and she ate all of them from the start. We had her tasting other foods as soon as she could manage them. She has eaten just about everything put in front of her since then. Last weekend we were at a Mardi Gras dinner and she surprised me by eating some very, very spicy foods. At six and a half, she only dislikes cooked spinach, but she’ll eat it raw in salad. My wife and I both like spinach so we’re not sure where that one odd dislike come from. She will always try something new. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law, on the other hand, are both white bread, chicken, green beans, and bologna sandwich sorts. That’s what they like. That’s what they fed the kids. And their kids are now very fussy nine and eleven year olds. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/22080_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/10 "2007-02-23T20:06:52Z")
Back in 9th grade, Mr. McGuire gave each of us a little strip of paper, not much bigger than a paper match, to put on our tongues. Most of us reacted to a vile flavor on the paper, but at least one girl did not. Mr. McG explained that she lacked a certain enzyme (??) that prevented her from tasting it. So, unless I imagined that entire lesson, I’m wondering if there’s something in our chemical makeup that contributes to what we like and don’t like. That might explain why I don’t like hot, spicy foods but my husband loves them. Just a thought… ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/11 "2007-02-23T20:11:09Z")
[QUOTE=Tahssa] It really doesn’t make sense to not like any sort of food that is not harmful evolutionary wise. [/QUOTE] It doesn’t have to make sense. For instance, eggplant causes me to vomit. Every time. Why? Who knows? It just does. Therefore, I make it a point to avoid consuming something that others enjoy. Is it a choice? Absolutely. I suppose I could force it down, but I don’t have to. If it was that or death, I’d be eating eggplant. ---
**Author:** ![Thirty-Nine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f0a364/32.png) [@Thirty-Nine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thirty-Nine)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/12 "2007-02-23T21:43:45Z")
I’ve always found it suprising that I can’t stand milk, despite drinking it twice a day as a kid. You’d think I would have got used to it. I couldn’t believe it when I went to other people’s houses, and they were _asking_ their parents for milk. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/13 "2007-02-23T23:48:26Z")
The only foods I’ve ever tried and detested are haggis, kidneys and limburger cheese. So I can only conclude that my ancestors lived long enough to procreate, before their untimely deaths from eating these three foods. ---
**Author:** ![robcaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@robcaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robcaro)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-food-preferences-exist/393387/14 "2007-02-23T23:54:49Z")
I have a maid who does all of our cooking. Everything seems to taste the same. I think she puts cilantro in everything. There is nothing I like better than to go out to a restaurant to get something different.