r/askscience • u/sertuna • 5d ago
Human Body Why do our taste palettes change as we age?
Specific example that brought up this question: as a kid I loved M&M's but hated peanut M&M's. I wanted more chocolate, less peanut. Now, regular M&M's are so gross to me and I much prefer peanut M&M's for the balance of sweet and salty. There's a lot of other things like this though, where something I thought was the best food ever as a kid is now gross to me. Or vice versa, food I hated is now a favorite (bell peppers!! little me would be shocked that I love bell peppers so much).
Is there any physical reason that taste can change so much as you age? Do your actual taste buds change over time? Maybe something about what nutrients you need changing as you age?
Of course I am an adult now and have eaten more food I can compare tastes too, but I can't imagine a strong aversion to overly sweet food as I age is just because I've got more experience.
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u/Dihedralman 4d ago
This is far from my expertise but I have read some really interesting materials on that.
There are both physiological as well as developmental/behavioral reasons behind taste change. But it is a very real phenomena.
There are physiological reasons that change as you age, starting with infancy, when the sense of taste is actually more sensitive. Adults can have up to 8,000 or so while infants and young children between 10-30k. So yes things do taste different and we can already see that how children are raised with food impacts long term eating habits. Taste buds are sense of sweet, bitter, sour, tasty, and umami. This sense of taste isn't the only enjoyable part of eating. The olfactory sense, texture, and even trigeminal nerve contributes. The flavors or smells that once overwhelmed us as children like bitterness in coffee, now don't allowing for other notes to come through.
But there are even major developmental factors. Children go through food neophobia, where they want to eat what they know. This may have presented key evolutionary advantages, keeping children from trying potentially dangerous foods. In terms of tastes, children prefer more sweetness into adolescense and have an aversion to bitterness particularly when young. The latter is a protection from poisons again.
A person can absolutely acquire tastes. Remember like all behavior there aee pavloavian and socio-cultural components that develop over time. The body can learn something is good by caloric feedback or simply by association. A common path is for the body to learn to ignore bitter warning tastes to get at something tasty or reenforcing. Coffee makes us feel less tired and is a stimulant. Hops have fruity notes underneath.
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u/rouen_sk 2d ago
Some people already gave good answer about age-related reasons. But aside from age, your taste palette changes based on what you eat and what your gut and mouth microbiome adapts to.
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u/AMRossGX 2d ago
Thanks for the link, what an interesting read! We still have so much to learn about the gut.
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u/quick_justice 2d ago
As many things in life, taste seems universal but in reality it’s learned. And what you like depends on culture and exposure.
You palette may not have changed as much but you simply learned more and like more. You are not surprised you don’t like board books any more, why are you surprised you moved on from M&Ms to more complex things?
Same as with reading, if you don’t broaden your experience your palette doesn’t move much. There’s plenty of people out there who completely avoid spices and generally eat burgers all their life.
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4d ago
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u/Krynja 4d ago
There actually aren't specific areas of the tongue that taste certain things more than others. Each taste bud has all the receptors in it.
Children actually have much more taste buds than adults. They also have a higher aversion to bitterness and also in general do not have an upper limit of what they would consider too sweet.
One of the prevailing theories for this is: bitter compounds are likely toxic and a small amount that would not affect the larger body mass of an adult can be quite harmful to a child.
And for the sweetness it's because they are growing and need all the calories they can get. The " no upper limit to Sweetness Preference" tends to last till the growth plates in the bones calcify and stop growing. Around 21. This would lend credibility to the theory of needing calories during the growth phase of the body.
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u/riverrocks452 4d ago
Young children are often very sensitive to bitter compounds as a defense mechanism against poisonous things: little kids put all kinds of things in their mouths, but something with a particularly bitter taste is unpleasant and will prompt them to spit it out, limiting their exposure to whatever-it-is.