First Bite: How We Learn to Eat by Bee Wilson Page B

you’d expect them to drink less of them—indeed, being a nontaster has been identified in some studies (though not others) as a risk factor for alcoholism: if whiskey tasted like water, how easily it might go down. But a study of young adults found that being a PROP taster did not predict how much beer was drunk. After decades of enjoying countless glasses of wine from all the great terroirs in the world, the leading wine writer Jancis Robinson found out that she was a supertaster, something which in theory should make wine taste odiously acrid to her. That’s not how it turned out. As she put it, “if I enjoy wine less than the rest of you, you are very lucky wine drinkers indeed.”
    When it comes to childhood, the key question is whether being a PROP taster sets you up for a lifetime of disliking the leafy green vegetables every nutritionist wants us to eat more of. Greens—especially those in the cabbage family—contain bitter-tasting glucosinolate compounds. One study suggested that PROP-tasting children were more likely to dislike raw broccoli, but not cooked broccoli. Another study found that when offered black olives, cucumber, and raw broccoli, PROP-nontaster children ate a larger quantity than tasters did. But when studies have looked at actual preferences rather than what children are prepared to eat in front of researchers, the signs are that PROP tasting in no way dooms you to dislike bitter vegetables. When 525 Irish children (aged seven to thirteen) were asked to record their intake and liking of cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli over a three-day period, there were few significant differences between tasters and nontasters. The supertasters did show a marginally lower liking for Brussels sprouts, and nontasters liked cauliflower the most. But when their consumption of bitter vegetables overall was totaled up and averaged out, there were no differences in intake for PROP tasters and nontasters. In this study, being a PROP taster mattered less than the simple fact of whether these Irish children were boys or girls: girls tended to like bitter vegetables more, or at least to be polite enough to pretend that they did.
    A 2013 survey of college students pointed to a similar conclusion. The supertasters and the nontasters showed no marked difference in likes and dislikes for a list of foods including Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, crushed red pepper, jalapeno peppers, red wine, beer, salad dressing, and mayonnaise. The only substances that emerged as having significant negative connotations for PROP tasters were dark chocolate, coffee, and chili: the dark, pungent end of the bitter flavor spectrum. The team of researchers concluded that environment mattered more than genes in determining preference. In America, they noted, many people “know they are not going to like spinach, tofu, liver or ‘healthy food’ and learn that fast food burgers, soda pop and sweet breakfast cereals are delicious . . . before they ever take a bite.”
    Some of the most telling research to date on PROP tasters looked at how genes interacted with the food environment of children. The study confirmed that household income and access to good food were more critical in forming tastes than being a supertaster. Over the five years from 2005 to 2010, researchers studied 120 New York children aged four to six. Their PROP status was measured, and each child was deemed to be living in either a “healthy food environment” or an “unhealthy food environment,” as judged by the slightly crude method of dividing the number of healthy food sellers by the number of unhealthy food sellers within a half-mile radius of where the child lived. In a healthy food environment, likes and dislikes followed the pattern that Ottolenghi—and common sense—would suggest. In this experiment, unlike the Irish one mentioned above, the PROP nontaster children, who couldn’t detect bitterness, did indeed show a higher