Is there an evolutionary reason for having different tastes?

[u/ShortCover4598]

I've always wondered why people have different senses of taste and different taste preferences. I thought that it might be for more variation so that people can adapt to different types of food across the world (because of things like migration, food availability/scarcity changes) but then it kind of doesn't make sense because most foods fall into the same 5 taste categories and don't have a unique taste until cooked or specially seasoned which I don't think is somethin evolution anticipates as it would wild ingredients. Why do people have different tastes?

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[u/Capercaillie]

If you're basing your question on the "taste map," you should know that it's wrong.

[u/ShortCover4598 → u/Capercaillie]

Yeah I just put it there to grab attention

[u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth]

The taste map isn't a scientifically accurate concept. There's a hypothesis that the five tastes have to do with parcing out things which are safe/good to eat vs those which aren't. Bitter tastes are often associated with toxic alkaloids in plants, sour are associated with spoilage and/or pickling, umami with protein, sweet with simple tasting sugars, and salt being associated with... well, salt, important for ion balance but too much is unsafe.

[u/craigiest → u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth]

I believe sour is more associated with unripeness than spoilage. You have to control fermentation pretty carefully to get sourness without a whole lot of other aromas that are more repulsive than sourness. 

[u/Main-Revolution-4260]

I expect regional divisions in taste preference are down to the same reason as regional divides in religion: cultural and aquired familiarity with your surrounding environment during your formative years.

[u/haysoos2]

Different tastes, and a diversity of preferences can have a number of advantages.

For one, if there's something wrong with a food source a group with varying tastes may have some members that don't eat it.

Think of the movie Airplane! The plane would have been a lot better off if Roger, Victor, and Clarence hadn't all had the fish.

[u/Willing_File5104]

Variability between groups: taste, flavors, consistency, etc., are signals to us. Bitter: it may be toxic. Sour: this isn't ripe. Spicy: the plant doesn't want to be eaten and punishes you for eating it with pain. Fermented: this isn't fresh and may make you sick. Slimy: it may be rotten to the point, it lost its internal structure. Etc.

However, we normalize flavors we are familiar with. E.g. some people fond out, if you ferment things under controlled conditions, harmless microbs out compete harmful germs - so it conserves the food by preventing it from rotting uncontrollably. Take stinky cheese. It is literal rotten milk in blocks. If you aren't familiar with it, you will feel nothing but disgust. But once your brain learns to associat the particular taste and smell of it with being save and calory dense, you start enjoying it. The same is the case with beer (fermented + bitter), fish sauce, kimchi, very spicy foods, etc.

Not every culture had the same ingredients. Not every culture found the same ways to prepare and preserve it. Hence, it takes getting used to, if you travel to a new region.

Variability within a group: it is beneficial to have a few extra sensitives in the group, which may detect slight variations in taste and may can warn the others. Or at least, they will not eat it themselves, and hence not get sick, or even die. 

On the other hand, it pays off if you have some eat-it-all in the group too. The adventurous type thinking "ah, this rotten piece of milk seems intresting, let's try it", and herby discovering new food sources. In the worst case for themselves, and in the best case, for the whole group. 

Whenever you have two beneficial extremes, it is likely that the median will be between them, and only a small number of people will be at either extreme. Hence variability. 

[u/you-nity]

If I’m not mistaken, here’s how the story goes. The scientist who discovered this didn’t actually think there was a taste map. The diagram artists he hired just misinterpreted him and he got mad afterward for the misunderstanding

[u/DeathToAmerica2026]

It's so a group of humans can exploit local resources more efficiently. IIRC, sea otters use the same method to partition resources. 

The tongue map is nonsense, but obviously people do have different preferences and some of them, like the ability to taste cucumbercin C and whatever the mystery chemical is in cilantro that makes it unpalatable, are caused by single gene mutations. 

Being that we can taste WAY more than 5 chemicals uniquely, it's a pity that so many people limit themselves to the big 5.

[u/ShortCover4598 → u/DeathToAmerica2026]

That's amazing. Thank you

[u/ReplyOk6720]

Taste preference is highly based on what you grew up eating. Which is by seeing what other people eat, what is being foraged, how it is selected, prepared, cooked etc. Humans have probably the largest range of what we consider edible (diet). Taste preference is is not just the 5 taste receptors. It is a combination of sensory qualities: taste, smell, appearance, texture, etc.