If cilantro tastes like soap, you could be a supertaster Or it could just be your genetics.
Somewhere between 4 and 14 percent of the U.S. population find cilantro to be soapy on the palate. So while it isn't rare, it is a small percentage of people
Are You a Supertaster if Cilantro Tastes Like Soap?
The answer can be yes and no. About 25 percent of the population are thought to be supertasters. So obviously, while you can be both a supertaster
and averse to cilantro, like me, you can also just have the anti-cilantro thing, like my mom. There is clearly some overlap, but in and of itself, an aversion to cilantro does not necessarily indicate supertasting, and you would need to do further exploration to determine if you are one, or both. And the level varies greatly.
Because there is not just one gene involved, the severity of cilantro aversion seems to vary from person to person
POV: You take one bite of cilantro and your mouth tastes like you’ve bitten into a bar of soap. Sound familiar? If so, you're not alone. Folks on team '
cilantro-on-the-side-please' tend to find that the herb tastes more like laundry detergent than a deliciously fresh and peppery plant.
And while plucking it off your every bowl of pho feels like a dreadful curse given how much yum you know cilantro should bring,
Inna A. Husain, MD, the medical director of laryngology at Community Hospital in Munster, Indiana, says it may have a silver lining...depending on how you look at it.
According to Dr. Husain, having a distaste for cilantro does not
necessarily a picky eater make. Rather, it has everything to do with your genetic composition. "Some folks simply have a different genetic makeup that makes them perceive the flavor of cilantro—and other ingredients—as soapy," she says. What's more, this may be indicative of being a “
supertaster,” or someone whose sense of taste is more intense than average.
https://www.eatingwell.com/article/8068382/why-cilantro-taste-like-soap/
Is it a blessing or a curse?
www.wellandgood.com
If you can't stand cilantro, you're definitely not alone.
www.today.com
Check to see if you are a supertaster.
Somehow, Brussels sprouts just found a way to get more bitter.
greatist.com
---
Stephanie Jarvis likely fall into the category of a non-taster, a person who experiences minimal flavor. That is why she can eat like a trash panda. 25%
of the population in the United States is classified as a non-taster. 50% of the population is classed as Regular tasters, and the last 25% are classified as super tasters.
That is why for 75% of the cd audience, Stephanie‘s opinions about how wonderful food taste really means nothing to them because she taste only minimal amount of flavoring or foods. They need to be wary about excepting her opinion about restaurants, food and recipes, because it is likely that 75% of them will not have the same culinary experience.
- The flavor of food is not something we actually sense, but is created in our brain based on what we taste with our mouth and smell with our nose (2).
- Taste, smell, and flavor are distinctly different from each other. Our sense of taste is built into our genes and can be observed in newborn children within six months of birth, whereas recognizing smells is a learned experience (2).
- There are five well-recognized tastes: Sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (a savory, meaty taste). There is also growing acceptance of fat as a sixth basic taste (3).
SMELL
In contrast to the small number of basic tastes, humans are able to recognize more than 10,000 different odors.
Unlike taste, humans are amazingly sensitive to smell.
- We are able to detect the aroma of certain volatile compounds at the level of one part per trillion, and a few at levels even 1000 times lower. To give you a better “sense” of what this means, one part per trillion is equivalent to one second in 32,000 years!
- Our exquisite sense of smell apparently evolved to help in locating food as well as avoid consuming spoiled food before tasting it.
- You may have experienced your sensitivity to smell when you detected a natural gas leak. Gas companies add a trace of a very smelly volatile sulfur-containing compound called methyl mercaptan to natural gas so we can detect even very small leaks. Humans are able to detect this compound at 2 parts per billion, which is a very small amount, but still 1000 times more concentrated than one part per trillion.
- Non-tasters like hot spicy foods, and usually require more seasoning to make it taste good. This is true except for salt. Because salt masks bitterness, super-tasters tend to consume more sodium than non-tasters (11).
- Some of the compounds we can smell at levels of a part per trillion and lower include those in green bell pepper, mold, roasted oats, and, the record holder, another sulfur-containing compound formed in boiled seafood.
By Guy Crosby, PhD, CFS Our sense of taste and smell is clearly linked to our overall health status. Many studies have shown that the flavor of food is by far the most important factor in determini…
www.hsph.harvard.edu