Why do people, even those in the same family, have different reactions to flavours? Like one loves tomatoes, one hates them.
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Probably an admixture of genetics AND environmental conditioning.
There may be a predisposition to certain foods based on genetics, however, our environment (what we are exposed to, how we relate to our exposures, positive and negative experiences etc.) play a substantial part.
You often hear people talking about mum or dads cooking, which could be abysmal or it could be great – what you were routinely fed as a child does influence the breadth of your palate and your dis-/likes.
My mom grew up with lovely heritage tomatoes, I have only had watery and useless supermarket variety
Another thing you should consider is texture. Some people may like the same flavors as their family, but differ in their tolerance of certain textures or “mouthfeels”.
Personally, I absolutely hate the texture and feeling of most plant cellulose on my teeth. I love the flavor of onions and tomatoes, but cannot stand eating one whole. It has to be turned into a sauce or chopped super finely for me to eat it.
The simple answer is because you do not have identical DNA to your siblings or your parents. Different DNA means different perception and structures associated with tasting, or anything for that matter. You could have larger or smaller ears for example, or finer hair cells inside your ears which gives you a different taste in music than your sibling has.
The other reason is that *because* you have different genes, you grow up and experience the world in different ways which further influences what you like and don’t like.
I think it’s adaptation, imagine a specie that only eat tomatoes, then imagine the tomatoes extinct or the tomatoes start to create a toxin that kills the specie we talk about, if it happens all the specie is dead, so the tastes are « chosen » by our dna which try to randomise it to have a high variety of food that we like, with some things that no one like (like sand or plastic that we can only like if we have disorder but it’s rare)
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