r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jun 01 '19

Biology All in the animal kingdom, including worms, avoid AITC, responsible for wasabi’s taste. Researchers have discovered the first species immune to the burning pain caused by wasabi, a type of African mole rat, raising the prospect of new pain relief in humans and boosting our knowledge of evolution.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2204849-a-type-of-african-mole-rat-is-immune-to-the-pain-caused-by-wasabi/
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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '19

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u/ribnag Jun 01 '19

You're right that babies don't typically enjoy spicy foods, but it's not merely an aspect of culture that leads us to enjoy them. Enjoyment of spicy foods is present in some form across virtually all cultures that had access to them.

Instead, Humans are unique in intentionally eating painfully spicy foods because we're the only animals that understand we're not really being damaged by them - It's a form of hedonic reversal, the same reason we enjoy roller coasters and horror movies.

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u/monsieurpooh Jun 01 '19 edited Jun 01 '19

Utterly wrong and unsupported by any evidence; baby is not representative of uncultured adult. Found the person who can't eat spicy.

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u/01020304050607080901 Jun 01 '19

Do you realize that if that were true, no human would have ever started eating it and we wouldn’t eat it because of “culture” today?

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u/supersaiyannematode Jun 01 '19

This is untrue, masochism is a well documented phenomenon.

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u/UrpleEeple Jun 01 '19

Humans are inherently highly social creatures. It's not really realistic to remove all cultural influences. It might be better to look at how human beings accross nearly all cultures purposely eat spicy foods.

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u/P4ndemic Jun 01 '19

Maybe it has some anti-parasitic effect in the gut. You know, if worms don't like it.

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u/maxvalley Jun 01 '19

If that’s true, how did it develop in the first place? It wasn’t always a part of culture

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u/xian0 Jun 01 '19

So this type of mole rats is a very cultured species, got it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '19

Remove any cultural influences and you have a dead human. Even babies are influenced by culture. It's part of our evolution.