DO YOUR GENES INFLUENCE YOUR TASTE IN FOOD?
Very Interesting|Issue 73
How DNA plays a role in shaping your menu choices
GILES YEO
DO YOUR GENES INFLUENCE YOUR TASTE IN FOOD?

Have you no taste? It's an interesting, if rude, question that encompasses a broad church of possible topics. Are you about to be criticised for your taste in art? Books? Clothes? And of course, let's not forget food. Many food tastes are acquired. Take the different types of starchy carbohydrates, which make up over half our global calorie consumption. My wife, who is of white European ancestry, loves bread. I'm of Chinese ancestry and can take or leave it. Rice and noodles, however, I can eat every day. A love of carbs is almost universal, but the 'tastes' for its various forms are culturally embedded from an early age.

This story is from the Issue 73 edition of Very Interesting.

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This story is from the Issue 73 edition of Very Interesting.

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