Ultimately, the brain controls how you taste food. Taste is caused by an interaction between the tongue, the nose, psychological cues, and exposure to different foods. Brains are programmed to want fat, most likely because of an evolutionary hang over from times when food was scarce.

Research has shown that how intensely people sense different flavors seems to affect how healthy they are.

“Supertasters”, people who do not like vegetables because they find them more bitter than the average person does, may be at more risk for developing colon cancer.

Fortunately, anyone can train their taste buds to eat a variety of food. It is thought that the varieties of foods that one eats as a child and the emotional connections to certain foods are more important than biology in determining food preferences. One can also trick one’s taste buds by expanding horizons when it comes to trying different foods on holidays like Thanksgiving.