As part of my ongoing/endless quest to determine what kind of "taster" I am, I mail ordered these Supertaster Test Strips from a company called Superior Diagnostics.
The test strips are impregnated with a chemical and thyroid medication known as 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP). The ability to taste PROP has been associated with the bitter taste receptor gene TAS2R38.
For $4.95, you can order the test strips here.
To conduct the test, all you do is put one of the strips of paper on your tongue. Non-tasters taste nothing; medium tasters experience a mild bitterness or "blandness", and supertasters find the paper extremely bitter.
The Supertaster test kit didn't quite provide the definitive results I was looking for. I either tasted nothing or blandness, which makes me either a non-taster or a medium taster. Maybe Superior Diagnostics can explain the difference between a bland taste and the taste of nothing?
So, do they report the accuracy of this method?
ReplyDeleteAccording to some paper in Physiological Behavior, studies about the accuracy of PROP are limited by scaling artifacts and other such things I don't wish to try to understand.
ReplyDeleteso, there is still hope!
ReplyDeleteThere are other indicators besides the test strips to find out if you're a "supertaster". I don't need to use the PROP test strips based on my history of reactions to foods like brussel sprouts, broccoli,kale,dark chocolate,black coffee, and the worst of them all---grapefruit---all of these foods I found profoundly bitter and unable to enjoy eating them because they were bitter to me. You can also put blue food dye on your tongue and physically see if you have tastebuds all over your tongue or only in a certain area. Supertasters have twice the amount of tastebuds in their tongues which gives them their "supertaster" ability. Medium tasters have less and the non-tasters the least amount. There are diagrams on other websites showing the blue dye test so it's easy to compare.
ReplyDeleteHope this helps---
Michelle