It’s a scene most parents probably know all too well: your family is at the dinner table and your kid is refusing to touch the few pieces of green veggie you’ve dared to include on their plate. After unsuccessfully trying to get them to give the broccoli or brussels sprouts a chance, your kid is suddenly in hysterics?and you’re rolling your eyes because this response feels like overkill. It’s just broccoli, right"
Well, it turns out that those tears may actually be warranted, because for some children you’re forcing them to eat something that tastes like rotting meat. Yup, according to a new study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, certain bacteria in our saliva can interact with veggies of the Brassica family (which includes go-tos like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and brussels sprouts) to produce “odor-active sulfur volatiles” that taste, well, disgusting. Sorry kids! Now, this connection between saliva and broccoli has been researched in previous studies, but this new study is the first to include children among the test subjects. It’s also the first to compare the kids’ results with those of their parents. The study found that while the amount of “salivary volatile production” (i.e. how much your saliva reacts to these veggies and creates the gross-tasting stuff) varies among different people, parents and children tended to have similar levels. So if you disliked broccoli...