Hate Meat? It May Be in Your Genes Study Shows Some People Carry
Genes That Make the Smell of Meat More Intense and Unpleasant
May 2, 2012 -- Whether we like or loathe the smell of a frying
pork chop may depend on our genes, a new study shows. The study,
published in the journal PLoS ONE, is one of the first to show
how genes may shape our food choices. "People who are
instinctively vegetarian or vegan or instinctively heavy meat-
eaters, it could definitely have some sort of underlying
biological component to it," says Kara Hoover, PhD, a biological
anthropologist and assistant professor at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks. She was not involved in the current research.
"When you consider that our food preferences are driven by
flavor, which is the intersection of taste and odor, with a
heavier emphasis on odor, clearly genetic variation in humans is
going to make a difference in how we prefer food," Hoover tells
WebMD. How Genes Influence Smell People detect odors thanks to
tiny chemical receptors that sit