A matter of taste: Bitter

A good gin and tonic is a careful balance of the sweet gin, sour lime and bitter tonic.  Bitterness is also a vital component of the flavour of beer, sprouts and coffee.  The bitterness of tonic water is due to quinine - a chemical which like many bitter compounds is poisonous (fortunately you'd have to drink alot of G&T before it made you ill!).  Perhaps because it prevented us being poisoned humans can detect very low levels of bitter tastes, we are up to 100 times more sensitive to bitter than to salt, sour, sweet or umami. The association of bitterness with poison may also be why we tend to dislike foods that are too bitter.

Bitter compounds come in a variety of shapes and sizes. These can be grouped into 5 different classes of compounds which have similar chemical properties.   In order to sense this diversity of compounds our taste cells have a variety of different sensors - as many as 80 different types. Everyone has a different combination and number of these sensors which influence the ability of different people to detect bitter tastes.

Some of the bitter compounds have similar shapes to those that we sense as sweet.  This means that compounds like artificial sweeteners don't always taste just 'sweet'.  When I eat or drink something containing the artificial sweetner Aspartame I can taste a bitter component and therefore dislike lots of low-sugar foods. 

Because we don't tend to like bitterness we try and reduce the bitter tastes in our food.  Yet some bitter compounds are good for us.  Some of them have anticancer properties and can help protect against heart disease.  In reducing bitterness we are losing these beneficial chemicals from our diets.  One class of these beneficial bitter compounds are glucosinolates.  These are responsible for the bitterness of brassicas like sprouts, cabbages and cauliflowers.  This has led to the breeding of vegetables with higher levels of glucosinolates.  One of these is Beneforte broccoli - developed at the John Innes Center and Institute of Food Research in Norwich.

 

Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Search form

Search

- See more at: http://www.superbroccoli.info/why-beneforte#sthash.v0cm90P7.dpuf

Meet Beneforté,
our ‘Super Broccoli’

Beneforté has been naturally bred to contain 2-3 times more glucoraphanin, which research suggests could help to maintain cardiovascular health and to reduce the risk of cancer.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

- See more at: http://www.superbroccoli.info/#sthash.m1El1uQA.dpuf

Bitter foods are also essential in creating a balanced plate of food, often counterbalancing sweetness or cutting through the fattiness of foods.  Given that we know most of our food isn't poisonous perhaps we need to learn to embrace the bitterness of foods - for our health and our palate.