What is a super taster?

If you google the word "super taster" there is plenty of info regarding this phenomenon. I have always wondered why I didn't like some vegetables, and finding out about the super tasters' tongue made the light come on in my head. So, I have forbidden my dh from calling me a picky eater anymore.

Here's what one website had to say:

Super taster
When your child, patient or co-worker balks at eating spinach or broccoli, put it down to bad taste. You may be dealing with a "super taster" whose taste buds are highly tuned into - and turned off by - bitter compounds found in foods such as pungent vegetables, grapefruit juice, wine, green tea and strong coffee.

"About 25 percent of the population are genetically programmed to be super tasters who sharply detect bitter compounds in food," said Dr Adam Drewnowski, Director of the Nutritional Sciences Program at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, and an expert on taste and food choices. "Half of the population detects these compounds to some degree and another 25 percent don't detect them at all."

What makes super tasters so bitterly sensitive to foods? Compared to their less discriminating colleagues, super tasters' tongues are packed with many more fungiform papillae, the little bumps on the tongue that house the taste buds. About two-thirds of super tasters are female and the sensitivity often fades with age. One theory is that, in years gone by, super tasting served as a survival mechanism. "Perhaps the characteristic discouraged pregnant women from eating poisonous plants or berries, which tend to taste bitter," said Drewnowski.

Ironically, many of these bitter substances are disease-fighting phytochemicals that may be beneficial to health. Super tasters can help the vegetables go down and optimise nutrient intake by adding a little oil or margarine to their dish. According to Drewnowski, fat improves the flavour of vegetables by masking the bitter taste.

Are You a Super Taster?

Try this test to see whether you're a super taster.

Using a hole punch, punch a hole in the middle of a 5-cm square of waxed paper (lunch wrap). Place the hole on the tip of your tongue. Swab some blue food colouring on the exposed part of the tongue and, using a magnifying glass and a flashlight, count the number of fungiform papillae (the pinkish circles). Super tasters will have dozens of papillae; non-tasters will have only five or six.