Why do we make weird faces when tasting something bitter in taste? Like a strong shot of alcohol or something really sour
In: 17
Many natural toxins taste bitter. Obviously making faces alone isn’t going to help you survive. But a negative response is going to stop you from eating more. And a very visible and immediate response cues the people around you that something’s wrong with the food. In our early days when we did a lot of foraging, the face reflex was probably an evolutionarily useful trait.
I don’t know definitively, but I understand that some of our reflex reactions, such as the ‘yuck’ face when something is bitter, are in part to signal to our peers that something could be toxic or dangerous. Humans are a social species and having a reflex like that in primitive times can let those around you know ‘woah! this plant I just tried is disgusting and might be poison’ even before language was developed.
Yuck face is a survival evolution
Why do we make weird faces when tasting something bitter in taste? Like a strong shot of alcohol or something really sour
In: 17
Many natural toxins taste bitter. Obviously making faces alone isn’t going to help you survive. But a negative response is going to stop you from eating more. And a very visible and immediate response cues the people around you that something’s wrong with the food. In our early days when we did a lot of foraging, the face reflex was probably an evolutionarily useful trait.
I don’t know definitively, but I understand that some of our reflex reactions, such as the ‘yuck’ face when something is bitter, are in part to signal to our peers that something could be toxic or dangerous. Humans are a social species and having a reflex like that in primitive times can let those around you know ‘woah! this plant I just tried is disgusting and might be poison’ even before language was developed.
Yuck face is a survival evolution
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