Does stevia taste different to some people?
I know some people have a genetic reason that they think cilantro taste like soap. I’m wondering if there is something similar pertaining to Stevia. I find that Stevia utterly wrecks anything that it’s in. Even if I don’t specifically taste the disastrous bitter flavor, I find myself just not managing to eat or drink a whole serving.
Some products I used to like have changed their ingredients and added stevia (presumably so they can claim to be free of artificial sweeteners) and formerly favorite products now seem repulsive. When it’s there in a small amount, I don’t specifically taste it, but I end up just not wanting to swallow it.
Is this a known thing?
Yes people do have different sensitivities to taste. One common difference is the ability to taste bitterness. I remember doing this test in college and the class had to chew on a bitter paper. Only about half were able to taste.
Yes, there seems to a genetic disposition that makes it taste like strong licorice. For me it tastes like super strong and very sweet licorice and I can’t stand this specific flavour despite liking licorice… But not ok in my coffee, bakeries, etc
Stevia tastes like aspirin to me, and it lingers. If I open a drink I can taste it immediately. I find it disgusting. I’ve mentioned this to few people and they thought I was crazy. I talked to a Truvia sales rep once. They explained it’s genetic in the way some people think cilantro tastes like soap. Some people are going to find it has a very bitter aftertaste. Of course she mentioned this to me after I tried a sample and had to spit it out it was so vile. Now I have to check every beverage label to see if it has it.
It’s probably up to the person. I used to HATE Stevia and anything it was in. I kind of exposure therapy’d myself and now I LOVE stevia. But I know some people don’t ever get the aftertaste and some people don’t ever get over it. So I’m not sure!
Had my DNA sequenced for ancestry and then fed it into a database that does medical analysis. It told me I had a marker which predicted I was much more likely to hate bitter tasting things as a child and more likely than others to love bitter things as an adult, and it was 100% spot-on. As a kid I was more sensitive to being disgusted by bitter things than most kids, and as an adult I crave bitter things that disgust my friends.
So there can definitely be a genetic influence on taste perception.
Sure, my case is just on anecdote, but this phenomenon with bitterness is common enough to have papers written about it. All the DNA markers had links to multiple papers establishing the correlations.
Pure stevia has a very metallic taste. Not everyone notices it, because you generally don’t need to use much of it when compared to most other sweeteners, but it does have a distinct, unpleasant taste.
I’ve never been able to stomach it. And I can always tell when it’s used. It’s instant. If someone hands me a drink and it has stevia I can always tell before I read the label. It tastes repulsive. It’s almost too sweet. And it lingers. I’d rather unsweetened anything over using stevia.
It tastes like vomit and almost made me vomit, I hate wasting food and threw it away before I could try it a second time. Not sure what the reason is aside from some people like the taste of certain things and others don’t
After I gave up sugar, and got past the cravings…it was surreal how much I did not like the taste of sweet things any more.As in, I get nauseous.
It’s at the point where I can no longer eat many processed foods. All I taste is the sugar and it’s revolting. Like “tomato” sauce. Who wants sugar soup on top of their spaghetti noodles? That is what popular brand name sauces taste like to me.
When it comes to the fake sugars? All I taste is chemicals. Like licking a floral air freshener.
I’m allergic to all those fake sugars and alternative sugars. They make me wish for death. Migraines, severe stomach and intestinal pain, brain fog, lethargy, etc. I can’t hack them. Plus all of them taste horrible. Splenda and aspartame make me gag. I e learned that real sugar is better for me. I barely eat any sugar so I’ll take sugar or molasses every time.
I found that the fresh leaves don’t have nearly as bad as a taste as the dry white power. Read somewhere, years ago in the early internet, that the green powder isn’t as bitter as the white, but have never found it. But found a plant to grow, so was able to try fresh leaves. My husband hates all types of it, so I don’t see the point of using it.
people are pretty divided about stevia’s taste, but I think most people dislike it.
personally, I don’t really mind it. It has a distinct taste, but it’s not really that strong to me, most of the time I’d never notice it unless someone told me beforehand. Maybe y’all just use too much?
If you hate the taste of stevia, it’s probably because you have the dominant gene for this bitterness trait. I saw a comment talking about chewing a bitter strip, that’s called a PTC or phenylthiocarbamide taste strip. If you can taste anything, you are homozygous dominant for the the trait and if you can’t, you are homozygous recessive. The gene coding for the bitterness in stevia and PTC is the same.