The Hemp Connection [Search results for nontaster] 

We all know them. The people you can't go out to eat with. The ones who can go through an entire menu of options and find something wrong with each one. The ones who, on sipping a glass of wine, will tell you that this vintage, woodsy with a hint of vanilla, has come from the Bordeaux region, Francois Fancy's vineyard to be exact, and the grapes were most likely picked during the record rainy week of August 7, 1997. And you order what they order instead of the house wine because you feel like such an oenologic imbecile in their presence. They're the ones who want their ice cream slightly microwaved before eating it. The ones you have to call in advance of a dinner party to be sure what you're fixing will be something they will eat.

Picky eaters? Food snobs? Pains in the butt? Or supertasters?

I vote for the latter. Research in recent years has identified a type of eater who is naturally, genetically, more sensitive to the flavors and textures of foods. I experienced this phenomenon in person a few years ago at a nutrition conference. One of my college friends and now nutrition researcher, Valerie Duffy, studies supertasting. At her booth, she handed me and my coworker each a piece of paper and asked us to place it on our tongue. While I sat there for a few seconds wondering what the gimmick was, my friend immediately began to gag and cough, explaining that it was the most vile thing she had ever placed in her mouth. We learned that she is a supertaster and I…am a nontaster.

Supertasters are interesting people. I imagine they're the ones in medieval times called in to sample the king's food to be sure it wasn't poisoned. (I could use one of them in my home to let me know when I should be throwing things away.) We had a wine professor back at Cornell whose sense of taste was so keen he was flown to several vineyards each year to sample the harvest and, based on his response, the wine was priced.

The specifics of how this is determined are outlined nicely in this article. What is important to take away from this blog post, is that everyone experiences food differently, and that is important to account for. I try to use this information in my writing here. Rather than encourage you to eat only foods that I would like, I write about as many foods as I can in hopes that each of you develops your own"favorite" list with confidence. Without even doing the PROP test, I'm betting you can tell who you are by the kind of food blogs you enjoy. If you have cinnamon from 3 different countries in your custom-made spice cabinet (you know who you are!), love endless detail about ingredients, preparation, subtle characteristics of food…you're probably more of a supertaster. If that intimidates you and you're more of a"just tell me what to make for dinner and for heaven's sake use the five ingredients I have in the fridge and make it easy" kind of reader, you're more than likely a nontaster.

One of my dearest friends is a supertaster. It took awhile for this friend to relax around me with food, probably because this characteristic can make it hard to socialize with friends and you can begin to become self-conscious about how your tastebuds behave in public. You can be pegged as a pain, eyes roll, people wonder if you have an eating disorder. I eventually learned what the top ten list of"friendship favorite ingredients" was, to microwave the ice cream, and not to experiment too much in the kitchen (note to self: marinated smoked scallops--definitely not a supertaster's favorite), and we got along fine. I actually eat better when I'm with this friend, I believe, because whereas I am more of an eat to live person and can get by on pretty much anything that quaffs my hunger and gets me back to work, my friend tends to steer me toward food experiences that encourage me to sit, relax, taste, and enjoy food for the many other pleasures it provides.

What's interesting about nontasters is that they tend to like more fat. That makes sense, since flavors are more soluble in fat, and food for a nontaster is more enjoyable if you do anything to it to enhance the flavor. I definitely love my fat!

Taste perception outside of the food world is pretty interesting. Supertasters, for example, are less likely to experience depression. And middle-aged nontasting women are more prone to obesity. Well that makes sense…first of all, if you're eating more fat so you can taste your food, you're eating more calories…and if you're trying NOT to eat fat because you've been told it's unhealthy, you're walking around looking for something to nosh on that allows your tastebuds to tell you you're full and it's time to stop eating.

You apparently cannot fool your tastebuds the way some food companies would like you to believe.

Does that mean supertasters are destined to be happy and thin while nontasters are cursed to be depressed and fat? Absolutely not. Many factors contribute to your mood and your weight. The point here is that it's better to identify the foods you LIKE and learn how to eat those in healthy balance, rather than try to eat things you don't because some food expert wrote some diet du jour that half of Hollywood is following that has no foods you enjoy in the meal plans.

Be confident in what your taste buds tell you. Don't apologize for what you like and what you don't. Work with what you've got. Enjoy the flavor ride. Microwaved ice cream, nachos, and all.

Joiner TE Jr, Perez M. Phenylthiocarbamide tasting and family history of depression, revisited: low rates of depression in families of supertasters. Psychiatry Res. 2004 Apr 15;126(1):83-7.
Goldstein GL, Daun H, Tepper BJ. Adiposity in middle-aged women is associated with genetic taste blindness to 6-n-propylthiouracil. Obes Res. 2005 Jun;13(6):1017-23.

I recently befriended the folks at True Citrus over Twitter. They sent me a large box of samples that arrived just before our Marina del Rey fundraiser. So I took it to let people try them out.

In a nutshell, True Citrus is a collection of dehydrated, powdered citrus, packaged in single serving packets. That is it! One package is the equivalent of a section of orange, grapefruit, lemon, or lime, and it also contains 25% of your daily requirement for vitamin C.

Of course, a slice of the real thing is what I would prefer, but there is always that situation, like when I'm at the gym, or on the road, or in a restaurant, where it's not feasible to extract a slice of fruit from a whole piece to add to my beverage. This is the perfect alternative. (It also keeps you from being exposed to the microbes that have been found on 70% of those ubiquitous lemon slices that restaurants like to put in your water. Eeeuuwww!!!)

Move along, Monika…

Angela, one of our fundraiser participants, took a couple of boxes of samples to try, to see if it was something she would use. She shared,

The packets for me are convenient to bring along with me in my purse to add a little something to a bottle of water I buy on the go. But it should be stated somewhere that it's a LOT of flavour for one little bottle of water. Maybe it is on the box (it's at home, I'm at work). It's just SO concentrated it's almost too tart to use the whole packet and once I learned that, I was very pleased! It gives just the right flavor.

Another use I found for it, strangely, was to add a little flavour to guacamole or to a taco salad. I can use it just like a lime when there isn't always some around!

I'm more of a nontaster and tend to prefer the whole packet. So be sure when you try it, to try different concentrations to see what works best for you.

As Angela did, I experimented outside the water bottle. If you read my post on the pomegranate/fig spread, I sweetened the ricotta cheese with True Orange. I have also come to love Greek yogurt with True Orange, sprinkled with nuts, as an after workout snack.

True Citrus products are also available in shaker bottles, giving them potential to become a regular condiment on the dinner table.