- If, like me, you're an amateur taster of beer and wine, inevitably you've asked yourself why you don't taste that hint of raspberry or note of pine bark that someone else says is there.
Genetics certainly have something to do with why we have different perceptions of tastes. Scientists have shown there's a genetic component to how we experience bitter and sweet flavors, as we've reported. And "supertasters," who seem to be born rather than made, are said to experience a lot of tastes more intensely.
But what if your ability to perceive nuances of flavor is related to something as simple as your gender?
There's pretty decent bioplausibility for this. Evolutionarily speaking, women who were better at recognizing spoiled food or poisonous alkaloid compounds likely had more and healthier children. Conversely, men who could stomach slightly expired food would most likely fare better in times of scarcity. Their food input would be somewhat more varied than that of males whose taste buds would recognize the difference between 1 day old and 3 day old water buffalo loin. Edit* I would like to note though that I think the title is unnecessarily oppositional. Is it possible to address male and female differences in sensory perception in a way that doesn't set up an 'A is better than B' dynamic? Example
From the title, I was half expecting #cannibalski.
The majority of perfumes smell like chemicals to me, I can often taste perfume on my toung when it's heavy in the air. They need to test pregnant women. My wife had a nose like a wolverine when she was pregnant. I suspect that if you put a slightly rotten grape in a cabinet she could have found it in less than a minute when she was carrying.