Women versus Men- Who Has Better Sense of Taste?
Everyone has a slightly different sense of taste. Some of us are simply able to taste more finely than others. In general, women have more taste buds than men. A 1991 study at the Yale School of Medicine found that some people, so-called “supertasters” are born with more taste buds than the rest of us. Supertasters have more than twice the number of taste buds as the rest of us. For supertasters, flavors have enhanced intensity –salt is saltier, spicy is spicier, sweet is sweeter. At the other extreme are so-called “nontasters”. Nontasters either have dull senses of taste or cannot detect some flavors at all. Interestingly, nontasters tend to prefer the tastes of sweets, alcohol, and fatty foods. Sound familiar? Most of us fall somewhere in between. We are neither supertasters nor nontasters. We have an average number of taste buds and average sensitivity. The Yale study estimates that about 25% of the population are supertasters, 25% are nontasters and 50% are tasters. For American C
