Eat bitter, taste sweet!! The science behind bitterness in children

 

KEYWORDS:- bitter, ancient, toxic, gene, children, tastes

AVG READING TIME- 7 mins

The foods present all over the world fall into these six tastes- sweet, salt, spicy, bitter, sour, and umami. It is essential that there must be a balance in the six tastes to keep the body in balance. Our ancestors used to have a diet that had all those six tastes in harmony and that could be a reason for them being healthy. On the contrary, the younger generation tends to like and have only three tastes namely sweet, salt and spicy, and even sometimes sour. Most of the children in this generation would not have even experienced all the six tastes. Most of them would not know how umami tastes and they would have known it through study.

Most of the children in this generation love to eat sweet, spicy, and salty foods and sometimes sour food but they hate to eat bitter food. There will be happiness and joy in the face of a child when he is given a packet of chips or ice cream but the face eventually frowns and dulls when given a plate of bitter gourd and a hand comes out pushing away the plate. Parents know that the child doesn’t like the food and they force the children to eat it. Actually, there is a scientific reason behind which children don’t like bitter food.

The reason lies in genetics. It all started with our ancestors who lived millions of years ago. They lived amongst dense forests which had about thousands of varieties of plants. The ancient man at that time was starting to learn about identifying the plants and categorizing them as edible. There was no research laboratory at that time where one can give the sample to them and get the results. They ate the plant and if they were healthy then they marked it as edible. Throughout the years, many people tested themselves for tracing edible plants. Due course, many people died or suffered from severe complications through the consumption of some plants and they marked them as non-edible.

some of the commonly seen toxic plants

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_plants

However, there were thousands of toxic plants, and memorizing all those names and appearances would become tedious. Instead, one feature was common in most of those plants; they tasted ‘bitter’. This information passed down through generations and this gene got updated at every generation and it is in its latest form in the children of this generation. This gene triggers the body to get away from all bitter foods assuming them to be toxic. The resultant is the facial expressions and hand movements. This is the reason for the different responses exhibited by the children when given bitter food. If the gene is predominant then the children show more resistance to bitter food.

This gene is highly predominant in children and its activity reduces as they grow older. They will get to know about the toxic plants either through learning or through experience and this gene becomes inactive in adults. The bitter foods available commercially are non-toxic and provide health benefits to the body.

ü They have essential fibers which can aid in digestion by multiplying the beneficial bacteria inside the body

body's beneficial bacteria- Escherichia coli

ü Bitter is an antagonist to sweet. Hence bitter can reduce sugar intakes in diabetes patients

ü It can regulate hunger, helping in weight loss.

Children know that their parents will not give them toxic food, however, they hate it naturally. It is the responsibility of the parent to make their children eat it. By implementing some cooking ideas we can overcome the bitterness without altering its benefits. Parents must force children at younger ages to eat bitter food and as they mature, parents must induce them to eat the bitter food by explaining its needs. However, people must have knowledge of toxic and allergic foods especially when they go to new places away from their home.   

It is necessary that children must take not only bitter but also all the six tastes in correct proportion. Top chefs can work on easy preparing dishes which integrate these six tastes and make them in such a way that children like them. The power to absorb nutrients from food is the maximum in children and it decreases as they grow older. Hence children must eat a lot of healthy foods and stock up the essential nutrients so that they be healthy and do not fall ill regularly.