I'm surprised, but it kind of makes sense . . .

[xiphias]

As part of one panel, we took taste strips to determine if we were super-tasters, normal tasters, or non-tasters. I've always assumed I was a super-taster -- I can detect flavors that most people can't.

I'm a non-taster.

I perceive tastes significantly less intensely than most people do.

But I love food. I therefore cook with much stronger flavors, and eat more. Apparently, most chefs are supertasters -- but almost as many are non-tasters.

Comments

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I wonder what that would show about me. I find my taste is strongly different from a lot of people. I taste the soap in cilatro. I taste the preservatives in wine, and the tanin. Red wine almost always tastes too strongly of tannin and some other flavors that just aren't pleasing. Beer is overwhelmingly hops, sometimes burned hops. But I can go on at length about the flavors in cider (so long as again, it's not ruined with preservatives), and after some time I have gotten the trick of tasting whiskeys in a way that I enjoy. Anyway, I've wondered what the difference is, and I've read about supertasters and wondered if that had anything to do with it.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

This falls into the category of unconfirmed rumor, so please take it as such. I've heard that people to whom cilantro tastes soapy tend to be allergic to it. Any idea if that's true in your case?

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Cilantro tasting like soap is, and I apologize if you already knew this, due to an enzyme that only affected individuals produce.

I know a couple of people for whom cilantro is soapy, and they are not allergic to it.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I didn't know that, and I appreciate your telling me.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Never observed any allergy symptoms, just an "icky taste face"

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Tastes, or that one taste? I thought the taster thing with the strips was for one particular chemical...

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

Some cuisines are more strongly flavored than others.

This whole "supertaster" thing is genetic.

I wonder if the less strongly flavored cuisines come from populations which have more supertasters?

I am a super taster.

[wolfdancer.livejournal.com]

IT is very over rated. Unless your tasting for food poising.
Eating out is not fun, when you can tase the hand sanatiser on the food that your eating, smell the dish soap on the glass, stast the residue of the lipstick from the perso before you.
Makes the world a much icker place.
And pepale wonder why I do not eat food that has been fried in a vat. You do not want to know what they put into them. I can taste ALL of it.
Ick.
French toast made in a Deep fryer? PLEASE.
I told the manerger this, and they said that would never happen.
Then found out that they made some thing called a montcrisco that is about the same thing.
I used to be able to taste a mixed juce and name all of the juices in it, till I got on the nural blockers.
It is a great party trick.

Re: I am a super taster.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I worked fast food, many many years ago. I wouldn't want to taste the stuff that is visable in the filter when they drain the fryer.

Sounds like you are the super-duper super taster.

Re: I am a super taster.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Yup, that sounds like my partner. Ari is a supertaster, and it seems to cause her more aggravations than otherwise.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Heh. Wife says I over season things. But then, she's from Kansas and I'm from New Mexico. May just be cultural.

[tceisele.livejournal.com]

Ah, the tasting strips. In a middle-scool science class, the teacher walked in and, with a sinister grin on his face, handed me a strip of paper and said to chew it up. Apprehensively, I do so . . . and his sinister grin fades. "What does it taste like?" he says. I say, "It tastes like paper. What was it supposed to taste like?" So then, he hands another strip to the guy next to me, who immediately spits it back out and says "Yuck, it tastes like aspirin!" And I say, "Aspirin has a taste?"

So, by the time we are finished, it turns out that in a class of 30, there were only two of us who were nontasters, and he just happened to hit one the first try. Later on, we did the experiment where we were supposed to identify baby food with noses plugged and noses unplugged. I was supposed to be one of the unplugged-nose controls, but I did worse than the people with plugged noses.

The thing is, I'm very aware of the tastes of alcohol, caffeine, and whatever the bitter stuff is in beer, probably because I'm missing the other flavors that mask them for most people. So aware, that I can't stand the taste of most alcoholic or caffienated beverages. People often think I'm a teetotaler or an anti-caffiene fanatic, but it isn't that at all. I just hate the flavor.

[navrins]

Interesting. I never knew non-tasting was that common. I thought I was just weird.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

20% of the population.

And, as you probably picked up, "non-taster" is a deceptive term.

Humans have taste bud receptors for over 50 chemicals which we all perceive as "bitter". And there are a few chemicals which SOME humans can detect, and others can't. That's genetic.

The taste strips are impregnated with one of those chemicals -- and the gene which controls that one also controls general taste perceptions.

So "non-taster" means you can't taste THAT chemical -- and it incidentally means that your other taste perceptions are less intense. But you still taste everything else -- just not as much.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Now I need taste strips! I really want to know.

I've heard you can tell by how many tastebuds are visible when you dye a patch of your tongue.

I like the taste of aspirin -- it's like sticking your tongue on a battery. *bzzt* very gently.

[copperpoint.livejournal.com]

There's a third option? I thought if the strips tasted bitter, you were a taster and if they didn't, you weren't. What else can happen?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

If the strips taste bitter, but bearable, you're in the 60% of people who are normal-ish. If they taste unbearable and you can't deal with it even remotely, you're likely a supertaster. If you can't taste it at all, you lack the chemical receptor for that specific bitter compound, which goes along with, for whatever weird genetic reason since genes make no sense, generally sensing tastes less intensely. You're a "non-taster" of that specific compound, and a less-taster of everything else.