I am not part of the elite club of supertasters. I have taken the PTC test several times in other classes, secretly hoping each time that I might experience the bitterness of that magical strip of paper….and that I might possibly be initiated into the special society. Yet, after seeing the list of foods despicable to supertasters for the first time in class, I have realized that I should be grateful of my non-supertaster ability because I am surprisingly very obsessed with many of the foods disliked by supertasters, including cabbage, coffee, green tea, grapefruit, chili peppers, and my all time favorite: brussel sprouts. Thus, I decided to research the casual lives of supertasters to see what sort of problems they might face in their everyday lives due to their super genes, and I stumbled upon these two blog entries by some random folks discussing taste:
posted by craniac at 10:13 PM on October 25
“I’m pretty sure I’m a supertaster. It’s not just green veggies, but also sugar and anything strong. I won’t even eat things like cake icing, too sweet. Same with salt. Will only eat natural applesauce, not regular applesauce.
Another issue is that I often use very few seasonings in my food, because I don’t like anything strong. I often don’t even notice if there’s no salt or pepper in a dish, much to the chagrin of people I cook for! I’m scared of buying organic, fresh produce because I am not adventurous when it comes to food. I’ve experienced too much unpleasantness.
Padraigin, thanks for the info on the recipes. I don’t want to be able to “taste” the vegetables, so that’s important to know. I’ve already had that experience when I attempted to eat soy and veggie versions of meat foods. Shockingly awful for me.”
response by Danila at 10:19 PM on October 25
“You are a food sissy.
With every microwaved meal, with every bland bite, with every glob of pasteurized processed American cheese food product that you shovel down your insensate gullet, you become more of a food sissy.
Stop it.
Get over yourself.
It doesn’t taste bad, it just tastes DIFFERENT. The only way to learn to like veggies is to EAT THEM CONSTANTLY until you like them. Fix ‘em however, doesn’t matter.
This is the advice of a reformed food sissy who tonight had brussel sprouts with pancetta, grilled asparagus, and a spinach salad for dinner.”
Woah. Talk about ignorant and insensitive. Craniac seems to have all the qualities of being a genuine supertaster, and his genes can’t help but not allow him to eat strong foods. Yet, this Danilia just does not realize the genetic nature of Craniac’s problem and begins name calling the poor guy. This made me think of how many supertasters must have to deal with public embarrassment at not being able to such common and simple foods like vegetables. I decided to further look up the stories of other supertasters who wanted to share their stories, and I found a VERY interesting article by a wine critic named Mike Steinberger entitled: Do You Want To Be a Supertaster? Mike talks about how he had chosen a career in the wine industry only to find that he was genetically a “nontaster”:
“What wine writer would want to own up to having a genetically inferior palate? What prudent consumer would take wine tips from a certified nontaster? After some additional research, I discovered that maybe I didn’t need to curse my ancestors and cut out my tongue, after all. For one thing, being a nontaster was not the career death sentence it appeared to be. For another, being a supertaster turned out to be not nearly as good as it sounded; in fact, to the degree that it matters at all, it is probably more of a liability for a wine critic than an asset.”
He continues to discuss how most supertasters cannot enjoy the taste of alcohol, which leaves their tongues with a burning sensation. Secondly, supertasters are very sensitive to astringency and acidity. Most importantly, Mike realized that “supertasters live in a completely unique world of flavor sensations, which suggests that their opinions about wine wouldn’t be of much value to anyone except other supertasters.” He discovered that a large percentage of wine consumers are male Caucasians, many of which are actually nontatsters! Therefore, what might be viewed as a genetic inferiority actually turned out to be an advantage in the world of wine tasting, since Mike’s “nontaster” opinion was more relatable to his consumers than that of a “supertaster”…ironic eh?
No offense to all you supertasters out there, but I am finally over wishing I was part of your elite society…
-Neelam
ps. DW must have been a supertaster…poor girl got a lot of crap for being “picky”
