I’ve often thought to myself, “What is it about foods like Coffee, Tea, Beer, Dry Wine and other bitter tasting beverages that makes us love them so?” Until now, I assumed it was something in the flavours of those foods that draws us to them. But new research suggests the attraction is all in our genes…
Happy Coffee Drinkers: Not because they like the taste,
but because they needed a hit of Caffeine…
What they did
Researchers from Northwestern University searched for variations in our taste genes that could explain our beverage preferences, because understanding those preferences could indicate ways to intervene in people’s diets.
Beverages were categorized into a bitter-tasting group and a sweet-tasting group. Bitter included Coffee, Tea, Grapefruit Juice, Beer, Red Wine and Liquor. Sweet included Sugar-sweetened Beverages, artificially sweetened Beverages and non-Grapefruit juices.
Scientists counted the number of servings of these bitter and sweet Beverages consumed by about 336,000 individuals in the UK Biobank study, a broad-based health data collection project in which subjects filled out detailed questionnaires.
What they found
To Study Co-author Dr. Marilyn Cornelis’ surprise, the study showed taste preferences for bitter or sweet beverages aren’t based on variations in our taste genes.
“The genetics underlying our preferences are related to the psychoactive components of these drinks,” said Cornelis. “People like the way Coffee and Alcohol make them feel. That’s why they drink it. It’s not the taste.”
The takeaway
The study highlights important behavior-reward components to Beverage choice and adds to our understanding of the link between genetics and Beverage consumption – and the potential barriers to intervening in people’s diets. If a preference is governed by behavioural factors, it can be modified like any other behaviour. But if it’s governed by your genes, it’s going to be a lot harder to change.
My take
I get Cornelis’ findings. Her conclusion about why we like bitter Beverages makes perfect sense. We overlook the taste of the Beverages included in the study to get the Caffeine or Alcohol highs associated with them. Many of us do everything we can to subdue the taste: adding Cream and Sugar to Coffee and Tea, and sweet, fizzy ‘mixers’ to Liquor. Fans of Caffeinated or Alcoholic beverages will gladly agree that they are ‘acquired tastes’. Rather than intervening after the tastes have been acquired, perhaps the medical and health communities need to intervene boldly before kids in their teens develop a taste for these addictive, disease-causing Drinks…
~ Maggie J.