We could have done with knowing this as a child…
Remember when you were a kid and your parents would tell you to eat your vegetables before you were allowed to go out and play?
Well imagine you had the knowledge to respond ‘No mam, I’m actually not genetically wired to eat vegetables’ back then.
We’re sure that would have went down well.
But according to Doctor Jennifer Smith and other doctors from the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, it may be a real thing.
According to the BBC, your hatred of certain vegetables could actually be due to your genes.
The experts have said that people who inherit two copies of a variant of the TAS2R38 gene are not sensitive to a potentially bitter taste from certain chemicals.
People who inherit two copies of a variant of the gene (AVI) are not sensitive to tastes from certain chemicals, while those with both AVI and PAV (often called ‘the taster’) get a bitter taste from the chemicals.
But then there’s those with two copies of PAV, who find certain foods extremely bitter.
Smith told medics at a meeting of the American Heart Association: “You have to consider how things taste if you really want your patient to follow nutrition guidelines.”
The same gene may also make dark chocolate, coffee and even BEER taste unpleasant to some.
So whatever you do, don’t invite these people over for a healthy dinner followed by some coffee and beer. Not that anyone would ever do that anyway…
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