The bitter taste is not our favorite. Is it right? |

What are our taste preferences?

We love to eat mostly sweet or salty. The bouillon flavor – umami is also incredibly popular, to the extent that highly processed products are enriched with glutamic acid to a great extent. It’s supposed to be tasty, delicious, just yum, yum.

The problem is that these flavors stimulate our appetite and make us want to eat more and more. Ignoring a sour taste, and above all a bitter taste, is not a smart tactic. Bitter foods in particular should be appreciated more and consumed more often due to their numerous and amazing benefits.

Why do we not like bitter-tasting products and prefer sweet ones?

From an evolutionary point of view, our ability to taste bitter was a warning sign that something was poisoning us. If our ancestor put a poisonous, bitter plant in his mouth, it was a signal for an immediate defense response. The food was spit out bitterly, the primitive man survived!

In turn, the love of sweet taste is also an inborn survival trait of humans. Mother’s milk is our first sweet product that guarantees survival. Sweet-tasting foods were a source of energy and calories for primitive man, so he ate them to the limit whenever he had access to them.

Today we should learn to control our taste for sweets, because excess of them causes many problems: addiction to sweets, overweight and health problems. Thanks to the introduction of a bitter taste to our menu, we can balance the diet and improve our health, and even lose weight.

Bitter foods help with addiction to sweets!

You do not know how to master your indomitable craving for sweet delicacies? It turns out that the inclusion of bitter-tasting foods in your diet dampens the cravings for sweets and may help control addiction to sweet treats. Scientists have found that eating bitter foods turns off the receptors in our brain that stimulate us to overconsume sugar.

If you have trouble absorbing bulk sweets, try drinking bitter herbs before or after meals, or eat high-bitterness food. A cube or two of dark chocolate, preferably sugar-free 100% cocoa will definitely stop your sweet tooth. It is not possible to eat a whole bar of such chocolate in one sitting. Well, unless you succeeded in this 😉

The effect of suppressing the appetite for sweet cannot be achieved in one go. You need to get your body used to the action of bitter substances gradually so that they can have a beneficial effect on you. If you have not eaten bitter foods so far, add them to your diet successively to get your taste buds used slowly and not get discouraged too quickly.

Bitter herbs and foods stimulate the digestive processes

Bitter taste receptors are not only found on the tongue, but also in the stomach and intestine. As we age, stomach acid production is less effective, which can be fatal in absorbing the nutrients from the food. You can eat healthy, but your body is not getting the valuable vitamins and minerals because your digestive system is no longer as fit as it was when you were young. This process can begin after the age of 35.

Bitter substances in food help to produce stomach acid, digestive enzymes and stimulate the flow of bile, which has a very beneficial effect on digestion. If you suffer from gas, gas, overflow in your intestines, heartburn – try drinking bitter herbs before your meal or adding bitter vegetables to your food. Thanks to this, you will support the digestive processes and the absorption of nutrients from food.

Bitter foods help you lose weight!

You may be skeptical about such reports, but it turns out that bitter substances contained in food act on hormones related to the feeling of satiety. While your appetite grows with the consumption of sweet and salty foods, and you have trouble controlling your portions, bitter foods act as a brake. Already half an hour after consuming bitterness, the level of ghrelin – the hunger hormone – drops, which prevents overeating.

A 12-week study conducted at the Scripps clinic in San Diego under the supervision of Dr. Kena Fujioki demonstrated the slimming effects of bitter grapefruit. For the experiment, scientists divided 100 overweight people into two groups. One ate half a grapefruit or drank a glass of grapefruit juice before meals. The second group did not implement this habit. In addition, the study participants ate as usual without changing their habits. It turned out that grapefruit eaters lost an average of 12 kg after 1,5 weeks. There were even cases of weight loss in the amount of 4,5 kg. In the second grapefruit group, the weight of the respondents did not decrease.

Bitter melon is the best fruit for diabetics

Bitter melon, also known as cucumber balm, is a fruit that comes from India, but is now grown in many parts of the world and very popular in Asian cuisine. Its fruit is very, really very bitter, which I had the opportunity to test because I bought it a few years ago in an Indian store. I did not appreciate its taste then 😉

It turns out that bitter substances contained in this fruit and in preparations made on its basis can act in diabetics similar to insulin and lower blood sugar levels. This effect, caused by the bitterness of bitter melon, can also be used in people with pre-diabetes or insulin resistance. It is also worth mentioning that bitter melon preparations are not approved as a medicine, so consult your doctor before taking them.

Bitter flavors support immunity

Adding bitter foods to the menu changes the gut microbiome, making it more diverse and comprehensive, which has an impact on our health.

When consuming sweets, we feed sugar-loving bacteria and yeasts, which may affect our taste preferences. They make us overeat with sweets and turn us into sugar or carbohydrate geeks. This is their natural survival mechanism.

Unfortunately, excess sugar adversely affects the body’s immunity. It is said that 75% – 80% of the cells of the immune system are found in the intestines. So it’s worth taking care of your beneficial bacteria and introducing food in all flavors, including bitter, to the menu, which prevents dysbiosis and related problems.

Examples of bitter foods, herbs, spices, and drinks

Unfortunately, our food preferences have changed in recent years. In the past, we used to eat more wild plants, vegetables and fruits that contained natural bitter substances and their taste was more complex.

Over time, the trend changed and the food was selected in such a way as to get rid of the unwanted bitter taste and emphasize the sweet taste. As a result, our tastes have changed – we have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by the food industry and have become slaves of sweetness. Fortunately, there are still bitter products on the market.

Bitter vegetables and fruits: artichoke, brussels sprouts, broccoli, arugula, endive, chicory, radicchio, white asparagus, kale, grapefruit, lemon (especially with white peel), bitter oranges, olives, cocoa beans, bitter melon.

Bitter spices: turmeric, ginger, tarragon, cumin, coriander, dill, parsley, marjoram, sage, and mint.

Bitter herbs: milk thistle, dandelion, nettle, cistus, chamomile, hops, pau d’arco, yellow gentian, wormwood.

Bitter drinks: apple cider vinegar, green tea, matcha, yerba mate, herbal teas, coffee, beer, dry, red wine, herbal tinctures, herbal liqueurs, tonic.

Are you a super foodie?

Perhaps you are one of those people who get goose bumps at the mere thought of the above-mentioned bitter foods and make a face with disgust. It turns out that a quarter of the human population belongs to the super-gourmet group. What does it mean?

At first glance, this positive term doesn’t mean people who like everything better. On the contrary! Super-tasters experience tastes more intensely, they are especially sensitive to bitter taste, which they do not like.

This tendency is genetically programmed, and the main culprit is the bitter taste gene, TAS2R38, which controls the number of taste receptors on the tongue. Super-tasters have definitely more of them and therefore are also more picky about eating vegetables or bitter-tasting foods.

Reluctance to this type of food can be overcome by proper technical processing of vegetables. Baking in the oven, as opposed to cooking, brings out their natural sweetness from vegetables, which can make super-tasters like even the hated Brussels sprouts.

Adding fat or other intense spices to cooking, or composing a meal according to the principles of Ayurveda or traditional Chinese medicine, which promotes the dishes in all five flavors, helps to overcome aversion to bitter foods.

If we have avoided certain foods since childhood due to their taste intolerance, there is a chance that as adults we will change our taste preferences. All you need to do is look at the foods you don’t like with a more favorable eye and try them anyway. By ignoring the bitter taste, we sabotage our own health and perhaps even lose unwanted pounds.

Summation

“Bitterly! Bitterly!” With this shout, a toast is raised at the wedding, motivating the young couple to neutralize the bitter taste of vodka with a sweet kiss. Unfortunately, we do not associate the word “bitter” very well. We are sometimes bitter, we are troubled by bitter regrets, and we want life to be sweet – dolce vita, not bitter. However, an old folk saying is, “Bitter medicine sweetly heals,” which today is confirmed by the science that studies the effect of bitterness on our health.

I hope that thanks to this interesting information, you will be able to enrich your menu with bitter foods, herbs or drinks, if you have avoided them so far. Perhaps you are already a connoisseur of bitter food products and you are not afraid of this least appreciated taste of the world – bravo, keep it up. May the bitter force be with us!