MinuteFood explores why bitter foods SHOULD taste terrible…here’s why they don’t. If disliking bitter foods evolved to keep us alive, why do we LOVE some bitter foods?
We, humans, possess this deeply innate, complex, finely-tuned ability to sense bitterness because having a warning system for certain toxic compounds, those produced by plants as a defense against hungry herbivores, was a big advantage for our ancestors. …So hating bitter stuff goes WAY back. But here we are, craving hoppy IPAs, queuing up for coffee and tea, chomping on chocolate and cranberries and kale and all sorts of other foods packed with bitter compounds produced by plants. How did we get here from there?