Sihaiwang: coriander is a common seasoning for us, but many people around us hate this kind of dish very much. When eating, they will pick out the coriander little by little, or say hello to the restaurant in advance, without adding coriander. People who like coriander think it has unique fragrance, appetizing and refreshing taste, and people who hate coriander think it has a 'soap smell and the smell of dead bedbugs'. How can this kind of thing with common indignation be put into their mouth?
First of all, let's see how many people are your kind on the issue of cilantro: 21% of East Asians, 17% of Europeans and 14% of Africans can't stand cilantro. We have the largest proportion in East Asia. In South Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, where parsley is often used for cooking, only 3% to 7% don't like parsley, according to a 2012 survey conducted by scholars from the University of Toronto, Canada.
If the people who don't like coriander were born in India, it's probably not the problem today.
In addition to the eating habits of the place of birth, the study also tells you that whether a person likes to eat cilantro depends in part on his or her genes. The researchers scanned the genes of 30000 volunteers. They found the or6a2 olfactory receptor gene. The olfactory receptor receives the information of aldehydes in coriander. There are two variants of this receptor gene, one of which highlights the soapy taste of cilantro more strongly. People who inherit two of the variants will hate coriander.
And two other research teams from Canada and the United States also found three other genes that lead to cilantro aversion.
In fact, scientists have identified some basic taste related genes, such as acid, sweet, bitter, salty and fresh. It is the difference in genes that makes anyone different in their sensitivity to a certain taste. For example, we are particularly sensitive to bitterness in these kinds of taste. Bitterness genes are also the most diverse among taste genes, with tens of them. This also shows that bitterness genes are the genes most preserved by natural selection, because many poisonous things are bitter.
And some other foods, such as mustard, mushroom, dark chocolate, bacon, coffee and so on, have also been found by scholars to affect people's taste preference genes.
Don't think that's how your confusion is solved. The research team at the University of Toronto has calculated that the effect of genetic substances on the preference of cilantro is actually less than 10%. Unlike your height, you always complain that you can't change. Even team leader Nicholas & Middleton; Eriksson said that in his personal experience, people who dislike coriander are likely to get used to it over time.
How is it from never loving cilantro to being betrayed?
yes. There are still some people who don't love cilantro from the beginning to the end. It's likely that they didn't like it when they were young, but they liked it when they grew up.
People's tastes change with age. In infancy, when people have the most taste buds, there are more than 30000 taste buds in their mouths, so eating is a very exciting process for babies - if you make their food color, smell and taste complete. That's why baby food is mostly tasteless. The main task of infants in this period is to absorb calories and grow up quickly, so the taste buds only seek fat and high sugar milk. Sour and salty are not the target of taste buds, while bitter ones will be rejected as toxic substances.
The preference for sweetness will not fade before puberty, and during this period, a little bitterness in some foods will be amplified by sensitive taste buds, so children will always eat less sugar and more vegetables under the coercion and inducement of their parents, and most people will resist eating green vegetables in childhood.
By the time of adolescence, young adults were proud to drink coffee, try alcohol and other adult foods, but most of them were not delicious for teenagers. Because the development of taste nerves is not enough for them to enjoy the bitter food.
Nothing to do with coriander? Maybe you're evolutionary
Of course, it can't be ruled out that some people hate to eat cilantro all their lives. They often see others eat cilantro and want to understand its delicacy, but every time they end up in a miserable situation. Those who are addicted to cilantro will sympathize with them and look on scornfully.
It's like this: once you eat something that makes you uncomfortable, mainly the food that your brain thinks makes you uncomfortable, the brain will think you are poisoned, so it's decided that if you see, smell or even think of this food again, the brain will make you feel disgusted, which may be the same for the rest of your life.
In ancient times, people used this mechanism to avoid poisonous things, so as not to be eliminated as much as possible.
Today's operation process is as follows: you have a cup of coffee in the morning, and you have to have one every morning. At noon, your colleagues invite you to eat in the new Indian restaurant downstairs. You have never eaten Indian food, but you want to try very much, so you went to this restaurant and ordered many dishes made in a cooking way you have never experienced. You feel sick, dizzy and sick at three in the afternoon. Your brain starts to get nervous: 'man, you're poisoned. 'then, if you don't, you're isolated from Indian food.
The truth is: your coffee has gone bad! Your brain isn't quite sure what caused you to get sick, but it uses the elimination method: 'it's been drinking a cup of coffee every day for a whole year. It can't be it. It must be the meal you've never seen before. I say it looks strange! 'but because you probably don't know that coffee is the culprit, you don't know that your aversion to India food is irrational.
So it's probably a chance that you can't remember the time when your brain mistakenly blamed coriander.
That's why it's best not to eat your favorite food when you're sick with a cold, or when you're in a bad mood. Maybe you think it's a consolation for yourself, but the brain probably thinks it's the food that causes your illness. Unless you know that the two things are not related at all.
People who don't like to eat cilantro can use this psychological factor to constantly hint that it's OK. It's not poisonous. Of course, this matter needs to be done slowly.