Taste for hot foods genetic?
- Thread starter illWill
- Start date
seems like its only me my brother and a few cousins who like spicy food my parents and grandparents and the rest of the family shy away 
I've always thought there is a genetic component to it..
As far as your sense of taste goes, a lot of it is based on what you are exposed to. Food you are given as a baby will strongly build up a continued taste for it in the future. And most people have seen their tastes changing over time.. But there is evidence that genes do play a role. I saw an article recently about how some people hate broccoli cause they perceive its taste as very bitter, and there is evidence that this is due to how genes direct the production of two different types of receptors that respond to bitter tastes. More importantly it is the ratio that an individual had. More of one kind and it tasted very bitter. So there is some food for thought as far as taste goes.
But you gotta remember that the sensation of heat you get from eating hot peppers isn't a taste at all. Capsaicin lowers the activation threshold for the type of nocioceptors that detect noxious heat (about 42 Celsius and up).
So maybe the question that need to be asked is, is the tendency to find that sensation pleasant affected by your genes?
Well a recent study from South Korea (I believe that is where it was done) found that people who like spicy food are more likely to suffer from alcoholism. In short, this because the feeling we get from eating hot peppers works in the same way as alcohol in that it can activate the brain's opioid reward system.
Alcoholism is very much affected by your genes. So it isn't at all far fetched to me to believe that loving spicy food is the same. I think it involves components of your genes and also what you are brought up eating.
As far as your sense of taste goes, a lot of it is based on what you are exposed to. Food you are given as a baby will strongly build up a continued taste for it in the future. And most people have seen their tastes changing over time.. But there is evidence that genes do play a role. I saw an article recently about how some people hate broccoli cause they perceive its taste as very bitter, and there is evidence that this is due to how genes direct the production of two different types of receptors that respond to bitter tastes. More importantly it is the ratio that an individual had. More of one kind and it tasted very bitter. So there is some food for thought as far as taste goes.
But you gotta remember that the sensation of heat you get from eating hot peppers isn't a taste at all. Capsaicin lowers the activation threshold for the type of nocioceptors that detect noxious heat (about 42 Celsius and up).
So maybe the question that need to be asked is, is the tendency to find that sensation pleasant affected by your genes?
Well a recent study from South Korea (I believe that is where it was done) found that people who like spicy food are more likely to suffer from alcoholism. In short, this because the feeling we get from eating hot peppers works in the same way as alcohol in that it can activate the brain's opioid reward system.
Alcoholism is very much affected by your genes. So it isn't at all far fetched to me to believe that loving spicy food is the same. I think it involves components of your genes and also what you are brought up eating.
When I was 3 months old, I was adopted into a Mexican family on my mom's side. My grandma and Grandpa were born there, but all my aunts and uncles were born here. It is a huge family (I am the 2nd oldest of 18 grandchildren) and until the day my grandpa died, my grandma had to make two pots of chili, one for my grandpa and one for the rest of the family. Ever since I can remember, I was the only one that shared grandpas chili. None of the 30+ other (100% Mexican) family members could handle it. They always said that grandpa lost a bet as a child and had to eat a handful of peppers and thats how he lost all heat sensation in his mouth... a completely laughable theory. You would think if heat tolerance was a genetic thing, they would all like the heat and the white kid with Scandinavian and Iroquois genetics would not.
To this day, half of them think dumping Tabasco on their eggs is plenty. And Tabasco isn't even a Hispanic sauce.
To this day, half of them think dumping Tabasco on their eggs is plenty. And Tabasco isn't even a Hispanic sauce.
Growing up hungarian we always ate the spiceenesxct. Never thought about it being genetic. Everybody ate jalapenos, hot paprika and the like often except for my younger brother Brian, but then he's a wimp and pretty much a girly mon.
DNA connection?
Maybe.
More like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon but change it to Six Degrees of Eating Like a Mexican.
I have a sister.
She married a Mexican.
Eats hot sheeit.
BOOM!
My brother Bill.
Married a Mexican.
Eats hot sheeit.
POW!
I married a white girl from Spokane.
She looooooooooves Taco Bell.
KABLAM!!!!!!
DNA connection?
Maybe.
More like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon but change it to Six Degrees of Eating Like a Mexican.
I have a sister.
She married a Mexican.
Eats hot sheeit.
BOOM!
My brother Bill.
Married a Mexican.
Eats hot sheeit.
POW!
I married a white girl from Spokane.
She looooooooooves Taco Bell.
KABLAM!!!!!!
Lucifer said:
Pleased to meet you.
Lemme' guess your name.
C'mon man, you're The Devil.
You're 'sposed to eat hot stuff.
Wait.
The Devil lives in SoFlo?
Weird.
He went down to GA, but found out how cool it is in SoFlo so he kept going. I am pretty sure that loving hot stuff is much more conditioned than genetic. Where I grew up almost no one liked hot stuff, but my dad did. I didn't like it at all as a kid, but I learned to like it on certain foods (Red Hot on a cheese steak comes to mind), and by the time I was in high school I discovered wings and I was off from there. Now my son does not like spicy stuff either so far, but I bet he will one day.
There are some genetic components. The preference for spicy foods is polygenetic, with influencers including inherited taste receptors in your mouth, inherited taste receptors in your stomach (yes, they are in there too), and inherited DA receptors, all influencing your likelihood to repeat ingestion of spicy foods.
A person is born with a said number of vanilloid receptors, the more you have, the more of an issue hot foods are. That being said, you also build tolerances.through ingestion, just like many foods. I found out, after about 40 years of life, by my grandmother (God bless her soul), that my Great-Grandfather (direct off the boat from Czechoslovakia) fed me hot peppers at a stupidly young age, as I helped him in the garden (where he grew them). I think very early on (I was about 6) the body is malleable in that way, and long-term tolerances are infused. Maggie, The Wife Unit, was never fed any form of hot, and to this day still finds black pepper hot. The number of vanilloid receptors has a lot to do with things, but I think, with early introduction, the receptor issue is lessened by tolerance build-up.
Case in point. Been doing shows now for almost a decade. I've always got a little Zero on me. 99% of people feel abject pain. However, certain groups stand out that don't (after thousands of samples), and they are mainly of Asian and/or Indian origin. Why could this be? Maybe because they are brought up with hot/spicy all their life. I don't think genetics have anything to do with heat tolerance. It has more to do with building tolerances.
Case in point. Been doing shows now for almost a decade. I've always got a little Zero on me. 99% of people feel abject pain. However, certain groups stand out that don't (after thousands of samples), and they are mainly of Asian and/or Indian origin. Why could this be? Maybe because they are brought up with hot/spicy all their life. I don't think genetics have anything to do with heat tolerance. It has more to do with building tolerances.
That girl in India who can take 50 ghost peppers doesn't have receptors for them. I think this is less to do with genetics and more the fact that she was fed them at the age of nine to help an illness. Because of her young age, the addiction factor was more intense than the pain one, and she grew up with a tolerance to heat because of it. I have other theories also, but it would cause a religion argument, and I don't want that.
Wouldn't a lack of the appropriate nocioceptor be something genetic?cruzzfish said:
Also, please do tell your other theories. Don't let fear of someone taking offense keep you from sharing what may be a great idea. I promise won't let any religious lunatic burn you at the stake for it.
First answer; Not if you burn them out when young. If the illness treating one was particularly hot, it could have caused sodium overload in the receptor cells, particularly in a young person.Pepperjack91 said:
Second: Due to naturally occurring peppers in the Indo-Asian region, natural selection would kick in. A mutation in someone allowing for less effect with heat would allow a hunter-gatherer to stay standing on not on the ground twitching for half an hour, meaning that they, if attacked by a tiger(bigger risk than you'd think, even now) could fight back. Such a person would survive to pass the mutation down to his or her children.
Wow....that is incredibly far off logic. I have been waiting for someone else to comment on this prior to addressing your confusion.
How would one burn out receptors with sodium overload? Do you mean preventing the Na/K pump from firing? Do you believe that every neuron would be damaged and never be able to work again due to an imbalance of sodium and potassium? The imbalance is not absolute, how else would you explain the effectiveness of lithium on tolerant individuals? It is very effective due to stimulating the pump as the cells believe they are getting sodium. We evolve constantly, and the finding 20 years ago that plasticity occurs at every step of the process is support for the fact that nothing adverse at any stage of the process is absolute.
1st off, "tolerence" is purely genetic. It is the upregulation and downregulation of neuroreceptors in response to the environment, giving rise to a need for greater stimulation to get the same effect as what was occurring prior to the changes. The DA pathway from the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens is sensitized, making the pleasure more efficient, which is the pathway of pleasure, obsessions, and addiction.
2nd, tolerence for peppers being a protective mechanism from a tiger attack is just plain absurd.
Yes, cultural influences produce more tolerence for things that we are repeatedly exposed to, but it is purely genetic as the environmental influencers produce changes within the organism (genes manufacturing proteins) that make the repeated changes more likely to be passed on in successive generations. That is evolution. Your comments are not indicative of any understanding of neuroscience or evolution at all.
How would one burn out receptors with sodium overload? Do you mean preventing the Na/K pump from firing? Do you believe that every neuron would be damaged and never be able to work again due to an imbalance of sodium and potassium? The imbalance is not absolute, how else would you explain the effectiveness of lithium on tolerant individuals? It is very effective due to stimulating the pump as the cells believe they are getting sodium. We evolve constantly, and the finding 20 years ago that plasticity occurs at every step of the process is support for the fact that nothing adverse at any stage of the process is absolute.
1st off, "tolerence" is purely genetic. It is the upregulation and downregulation of neuroreceptors in response to the environment, giving rise to a need for greater stimulation to get the same effect as what was occurring prior to the changes. The DA pathway from the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens is sensitized, making the pleasure more efficient, which is the pathway of pleasure, obsessions, and addiction.
2nd, tolerence for peppers being a protective mechanism from a tiger attack is just plain absurd.
Yes, cultural influences produce more tolerence for things that we are repeatedly exposed to, but it is purely genetic as the environmental influencers produce changes within the organism (genes manufacturing proteins) that make the repeated changes more likely to be passed on in successive generations. That is evolution. Your comments are not indicative of any understanding of neuroscience or evolution at all.
First one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resiniferatoxin whether or not cap could do this if you where very sensitive, young, unaccustomed to it, and the pepper was hotter than normal is possible but very unlikely. I had to type that in a hurry. Sodium was the wrong word, caused by being mildly conscious. The blistering effect caused by a natural defense mechanism in response to a fire, real or perceived, takes the top layer of cells with it. If this is repeated, particularly if a person is extra sensitive to it, permanent scarring could occur, and the person in question did, in fact, eat them for a prolonged period of time.ms1476 said:
Second: Tiger attack was an example. Could have been plenty of other things, such as not vomiting out what limited food you could find, to the toughness factor to impress others in the village. If a hunter gatherer is in the middle of cap cramp, he's gonna have a lot harder a time fighting something off. Especially if he's never felt cap before. As such, the poor fool who consumed one prior to needing to defend himself/right after eating his one meal of the day is gonna have a much harder time surviving than someone who didn't. Even better, the guy who can eat them, get the nutrients, and not vomit them out would have several advantages. First, the other tribesmen would be impressed, thus increasing his social standing and therefore chances of procreation, and he would also be healthier. Civilizations took a good while to take root, just look at how close the American settlers came to perishing, and that was with the natives helping them. Imagine how much harder the first natives had in an environment they had never seen before. As such, a person with cap tolerance/immunity would do just marginally better so as to allow a small portion of the population would have immunity/increased tolerance.
Your last comment made me die inside. If you worded it poorly, you're forgiven. If not, I'm going to go break out the Punnet charts, even if they're not the most exact things out there. Genes have to mutate randomly, THEN the changes that they make in the organism can determine how well that gene is going to be passed down. If the gene that would produce a change allowing an organism to survive is present in no members of the population at the time it would be needed, it is not gonna show up. That organism is gonna die out completely.(again, forgive me if that is what you where trying to say. What you where saying seems to have been that the change in genome would manifest in response to the environment)
"1st off, "tolerence" is purely genetic. It is the upregulation and downregulation of neuroreceptors in response to the environment, giving rise to a need for greater stimulation to get the same effect as what was occurring prior to the changes. The DA pathway from the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens is sensitized, making the pleasure more efficient, which is the pathway of pleasure, obsessions, and addiction"
Are you trying to describe what tolerance is genetically, because if so you goofed. If not, than you are doing a very good job describing what adaptive tolerance is.
no i dont think its genetic my family doesnt eat spicy food and rerally doesnt like it much
coming from a PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH FAMILY it was meat and potatos and when it was a little spicy it was just a dash of black pepper
i aquired a taste for hot stuff quite by accident, i decided to grow hot pepeprs for "MACHISMO REASONS" about 20+ years ago
and found i liked it and it went from there
so i would say no not genetic (ethnic ethnic regonal definatly) but definatly an aquired taste
thanks your friend Joe
coming from a PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH FAMILY it was meat and potatos and when it was a little spicy it was just a dash of black pepper
i aquired a taste for hot stuff quite by accident, i decided to grow hot pepeprs for "MACHISMO REASONS" about 20+ years ago
and found i liked it and it went from there
so i would say no not genetic (ethnic ethnic regonal definatly) but definatly an aquired taste
thanks your friend Joe
Trust me, no one is doubting that it's acquired.ajijoe said:
Just that the base tolerance of some people is higher than others. It's not exactly noticeable once you start stuffing your face with stuff like 7 pods though. Basically, difference isn't that noticeable for anyone on the forums.
I beg to differ with the whole 'genetics' thing. I'm an interesting mix of Czech/Irish, neither of which is known for their "heat" in cooking. As I stated in my previous post, I pretty much 'recently' found out where my love for hot came from (a VERY early age). see previous post. Using myself as a marker, the genetics idea is tossed out with the refuse. Nobody in my entire family can do heat, nobody (black pepper to most of them is hot). My parents have recently moved up do Defense Condition #2 after a few years of using the #3 (which took them a while to deal with the heat). That would be another case, in the same family, of the tolerance being built, not genetics.
No one in my family can take heat either. Irish/Scandinavian will do that. However, I did notice that my untrained tolerance was a little bit higher. It quickly got a lot higher after eating a moruga for the first time. Following that, habs don't feel so bad anymore. It's a mix of a lot of factors really. Some people's brains like pain, others don't feel it as much, and some people like the endorphin rush. While I think genes do have a small part to play, it's much more upbringing that does it. Also ,if a "tough guy" has never eaten one before, his tolerance will be a LOT lower than it would be if he was properly scared. Has to do with expecting it being worse if he knows whats gonna happen.