You thought you ended up liking beer out of habit. Science has seen many ways to acquire this taste

There are many people who cannot stand certain foods, such as the hated broccoli or cauliflower, which for some is inedible and they do not even understand how someone could like that. This also happens when you first take a sip of coffee or a drink of beer whose strong flavor can put anyone off. However, a few years later, that same bitter drink is part of the daily routine or even a pleasure, as is the case with beer.

How is it possible? This is the question we can ask ourselves about these sudden changes in taste, and the truth is that it is quite documented under the term “acquired taste“. These two words explain not only why our preferences change, but also how our brain is capable of rewriting its own danger alerts to transform rejection into a reward.

Survive. To understand why we learn to love certain flavors, we first have to understand why we hate them in the first place. Much of the blame lies with food neophobia, which is nothing more than the fear or refusal to try new foods, since although in childhood we usually label it as “being picky”, from an evolutionary point of view it is a sophisticated defense mechanism.

If we look back to prehistory, children put anything they found in their mouths; like a new berry or a bitter plant, they were very likely to end up poisoned. That is why any bitter taste for our brain is a sign of toxicity and, therefore, we must reject it. Although this is not the case, as is the case with many foods.

It’s genetic. The interesting thing is that this rejection is programmed from the factory and has a very strong genetic component. This has been seen in studies done on twins who demonstrated that childhood food neophobia is highly heritable, estimating that heritability by up to 72% during early stages. This genetic predisposition is often associated with a lower acceptance of diverse flavors and textures, and a more restrictive diet in childhood.

But genetics only deals the cards with which we will later play in a great environment, since 28% of the probabilities leave a margin for environmental factors.

Hacking the brain. The question here is that if biology has programmed us to spit out coffee because it is bitter… Why are many people hooked on it? The answer lies in the brain mechanisms of flavor learning and memory, since our brain constantly evaluates the post-ingestion consequences of what we eat. This is what explains, for example, that if we vomit a lot after eating a tortilla, we begin to put it aside later because we associate it with illness.

But if we drink something bitter and, instead of getting sick or dying, we get a boost of energy like with caffeine or a social disinhibition like with alcohol, the brain updates its database and points out that the risk was worth it and that we achieved something positive.

Repeated exposure. In order to introduce new foods into a diet that is being developed, as occurs in children, science suggests that Consistency destroys this disgust that generates. However, visual exposure alone is not enough to break this ‘phobia’, rather repeated oral contact is necessary for the nervous system to adapt and accept the food.

To facilitate this process, humans have thought of techniques such as, for example, sweeten foodand that is why the fact of adding sugar to coffee or drinking it with milk arises. This acts as a neuropsychological bridge to signal to the brain that these are safe calories.

The social model It is one of the most important tools to intervene in our tastes. Here studies in infants suggest that seeing parents enjoy an unfamiliar food significantly increases acceptance in babies. And the reasoning is quite simple, since if the adult eats it and does not suffer damage, the food is considered safe to continue eating.

And as you grow up, a large part of the flavors acquired in adolescence, such as beer or traditional dishes, are adopted because they are strongly linked to contexts of socialization and group acceptance, since if a friend takes it and nothing happens to him, it is because everything is fine.

Images | Louis Hansel

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