Food likes

Food likes and dislikes vary by individual. There was an old commercial that went: “Everybody doesn’t like some things, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.”

It is not likely that the commercial was 100 percent true. Individual food likes and dislikes are a combination of many factors.

Some of that is genetic. Our genetic makeup helps determine how we perceive flavors. For some people, bitter flavoring is stronger than for others. People have genetically different senses of smell. That is an important part of food tasting. Evolution has provided genes that prefer sweet and salty. That is likely because toxic substances killed off the people with genes who would eat them regardless of taste.

A big part of what people eat is related to their cultural background. We learn what to eat as members of a family. For that reason, most family members have similar likes or dislikes. Sometimes, a negative experience with a particular food may make us not want to eat that food again. That is true even if the culprit in the negative experience was not the food itself.

Exposure plays a big role. The more we eat a food, the more likely we are to like that food. Growing up in an Italian household meant I ate lots of pasta. I still like pasta.

Of course, I have developed a weird allergy that prevents me from exercising after eating pasta. If I eat pasta and exercise, I have an anaphylactic reaction requiring an Epipen. Eating pasta alone is fine. Exercising alone is fine. I just cannot do one after the other. Some people have asked me why I still eat pasta. I tell them that since I am Italian, I would probably become hypopastemic.

Fond memories of a food eaten in the past will make people desire to have it again in the future. Unconscious memories can also play a role. We may have felt sick to our stomach after eating something. Even though we might not remember the incident, we might still not like that particular food.

Eating is a sensory experience. It involves the aroma of the food. It involves the taste of the food. It involves the texture of the food. There are people who may dislike a particular food because of one of these factors.

Then there are outside conditions. When someone is hungry, there might be less concerns about eating something they do not like. When someone is in a bad mood, they might not want to eat at all. We all know how illness affects our willingness to eat certain foods.

The bottom line is that there is no one size fits all. There are many factors involved in eating. We are all different. Therefore, we have different likes and dislikes. And perhaps indeed “nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.”