Who wouldn’t salivate at the thought of fried tarantulas, tuna eyes, or worm salt? Probably 90% of readers who have come across this post would cringe at the idea of these delicacies. Biological and cultural factors become crucial when deciding what we like or dislike.
How has this determination been reached?
“Nature and nurture in children’s food preferences” is a comparative study conducted by the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London (UCL) in a population of 2402 families with twins, as they usually have similar tastes. This research studied how genetics and culture influence a wide variety of foods since health professionals generally claim that a child’s food preferences are determined by what they find at home. However, parents sometimes perceive it as a choice that comes from birth. The conclusions drawn from this study reveal that genetics dominate in the choice of vegetables, fruits, and proteins, while the environment influences what we snack on, dairy, and sugars.
Faced with this situation, parents feel helpless in terms of nutritional education. So, does everything healthy that we try to include in our children’s daily diet depend on genetics, and the products that promote obesity and lack nutritional value depend on “what is readily available”? On the other hand, another study conducted with twins and including more than 2000 individuals showed that the choice of food based on similar flavors and nutritional characteristics was determined not only by the shared environment but also by genetics. That is, when twins grow up, the hereditary factor will persist—if they don’t like broccoli, neither will eat broccoli. However, the influence of the shared environment disappears in favor of personal experience; each one decides whether to snack on what is available.
In order to have a more comprehensive analysis of which gene variations are related to the type of foods we like or dislike, in mid-May more than 160,000 individuals were analyzed to obtain more detailed conclusions on this matter. Three groups of foods were established:
- Highly palatable and energetic foods (desserts, meats, and very tasty and pleasant foods)
- Low-calorie foods (vegetables, fruits, and cereals)
- Acquired foods (unsweetened coffee, alcoholic beverages, cheeses, and strongly flavored vegetables).
They then correlated them and observed that the choice of the first group was independent of either of the other two, between which they detected a correlation of moderate to high choice. A result that highlights that the choice of tasty and energetic foods predominates over the rest. They also analyzed the presence of gene variations depending on the consumption of certain foods.
On the other hand, there are numerous studies confirming the congenital predisposition when opting for one element or another. In fact, the American Society of Nutrition has identified in a study the association between genetic variants and each of the five basic tastes (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami), as well as with cardiometabolic risk factors.