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<h1>Is Taste a Superpower?</h1>

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    <h2>SuperTasters</h2>
    <p>Supertasters have the most fungiform papillae, or mushroom-shaped bumps, on their tongues. "People tend to fall into three groups, based on their ability to taste a bitter compound known as propylthiouracil, or PROP."</p>

    <p>"You may have encountered PROP in a high school biology lab or at a science museum somewhere. You’re handed a little piece of filter paper infused with a modest amount of PROP, which you put on your tongue. the third group experiences extreme bitterness. This third group, the supertasters, are easy to recognize: They’re the ones who make an anguished face and rush off to find something—anything—to wash that horrible taste out of their mouth. Bartoshuk often asks people to rate the intensity of PROP’s bitterness on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is the most intense sensation they’ve ever experienced—the pain of childbirth, say, or a broken bone, or the visual sensation of looking directly at the sun. Supertasters often rate the bitterness of PROP in the 60–80 range, nearly in broken-bone territory."</p>

    <p>"And it’s not just bitterness. Supertasters tend to rate sweets as sweeter, salt as saltier, and chili peppers as hotter. They even report that food aromas are more intense, says Bartoshuk—probably because taste and smell reinforce each other in the brain.

      Before I get too smug about my taste acuity, though, Bartoshuk points out that supertasters tend to be pretty boring eaters. Most of them prefer to avoid the intense taste experiences that come with highly flavored foods, so their diets are often bland and narrow. In particular, bitter greens and other vegetables don’t show up very often on the plates of most supertasters."</p>
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    <h2>Average Tasters</h2>
    <p>"Others—the tasters—notice an unpleasant bitter taste, The ability to taste PROP turns out to be mostly a function of one particular bitter receptor, T2R38. There are two common variants of this gene: one version that responds strongly to PROP and one that doesn’t. This suggests that people with two copies of the nonresponding gene (one from each parent) are nontasters, those with two copies of the high-responding gene are supertasters, and those with one of each are normal tasters. "</p>

    <p>"T2R38 probably has nothing to do with supertasting, at least not directly. Your T2R38 genes determine whether you have the genetic ability to taste PROP at all—but if you do, the amount of bitterness you experience probably depends on how well the rest of the taste machinery in your mouth and brain responds. The genes that control that machinery are what really make the difference between a taster and a supertaster—and if you can taste PROP at all, the amount of bitterness you experience is a decent measure of how sensitive the rest of your machinery is. "</p>

    <p>"Each papilla contains several smaller clusters of cells bearing taste receptors. These clusters are the real taste buds, technically speaking, and the cells within them send nerve impulses up the taste nerves to the brain, signaling which of their receptors has encountered its particular taste quality. It makes sense that tongues with more papillae would generate stronger nerve signals and hence experience more intense tastes. "</p>
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    <h2>Non-Tasters</h2>
    <p>"So what determines how many papillae you have on your tongue? Nobody knows for sure, but there are intriguing hints that a protein called gustin might be involved in stimulating the formation of fungiform papillae. People with one particular variant of the gustin gene have abundant, normal papillae, while those with a different variant have large, misshapen, sparsely scattered papillae. No doubt, too, there are plenty of other genes that affect overall taste sensitivity and thus help to define whether you’re a supertaster, an ordinary taster, or a (relative) nontaster. "</p>

    <p>"For the T1R3 variant, people with a T at one particular spot are less sensitive to sweet taste, and like it more, than those with a C. “It’s like they can’t taste sweet as much, so they are choosing the higher concentrations,” says Reed.".</p>

    <p>One of these was the bitter receptor T2R19, which detects quinine, the bitter chemical found in tonic water. </p>
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<div class="spiciness">
<h2>Spiciness</h2>
  <div class="tongue4">Super Taster<span class="tooltiptext">Ouch! This is way too spicy! It's painful!</span></div>
  <div class="tongue4">Average Taster<span class="tooltiptext">Wow, this is pretty spicy!</span></div>
  <div class="tongue4">Non- Taster<span class="tooltiptext">Add more heat, I can handle it.</span></p></div>
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<h2>Bitterness</h2>
<div class="tongue4">Super Taster<span class="tooltiptext">Blech! This coffee is too bitter!!!</span></div>
<div class="tongue4">Average Taster<span class="tooltiptext">This coffee would taste better with a little milk and sugar.</span></div>
<div class="tongue4">Non- Taster<span class="tooltiptext">I love drinking black coffee!</span></div>
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<h2>Fat Content</h2>
<div class="tongue4">Super Taster<span class="tooltiptext">Mom did you accidentally buy 1%?</span></div>
<div class="tongue4">Average Taster<span class="tooltiptext">Hmm...I can't tell if something's different...</span></div>
<div class="tongue4">Non- Taster<span class="tooltiptext">Tastes the same to me.</span></div>
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<div class="carbonation">
<h2>Carbonation</h2>
<div class="tongue4">Super Taster<span class="tooltiptext">The carbonation burns!</span></div>
<div class="tongue4">Average Taster<span class="tooltiptext">I like champagne.</span></div>
<div class="tongue4">Non- Taster<span class="tooltiptext">I could drink this all day!</span></div>
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<p>Some of us are what Tepper likes to call “food adventurous.” That means there are really two kinds of supertasters, according to Tepper. Those who are not food adventurous are the classic, picky eaters: they don’t like things too sweet, too hot, too fatty, too spicy. “They know what they like, and their food choices are guided by their previous experiences. </p>

<p>On the other hand, supertasters who are food adventurous are willing to be surprised, even by intense tastes, and will try something again even after a disconcerting first experience. Because they’re not put off by intense experiences, this category of supertasters resembles nontasters in their food preferences. “I’m a supertaster, and I actually like a lot of the foods that theoretically I shouldn’t like. But I’m also food-adventurous,” says Tepper.</p>

<p>These few genes that I had tested are probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to genetic differences in taste perception. Reed thinks there could be dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of genes that affect our taste acuity and our perceptions of particular tastes. In addition to the taste receptor genes themselves, many other genes probably affect how our cells respond once a taste receptor has been stimulated, how readily signals are sent to the brain, and every other step of the taste-sensing pathway. </p>

<h2>Sources</h2>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQD3dbQWAH8">Are You A Supertaster? Taste Test ft. AsapSCIENCE</a>
<br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/s7ONvIgOWdM">Are You a Supertaster?</a>
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<a href="https://www.ifis.org/blog/supertasters">Super Taster vs. Non Taster: Does it Matter for Your Health?</a>
<br />
<a href="https://supertaster.com/">ARE YOU A SUPERTASTER?</a>
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<a href="https://www.thecut.com/article/picky-eater-you-might-be-a-supertaster.html">Picky Eater? You Might Be a Supertaster</a>
<br />
<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/05/supertasters-bite-podcast-food/">How to Know If You’re a “Super Taster”</a>



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