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Dietary customs and food availability shape the preferences for basic tastes: A cross-cultural study among Polish, Tsimane' and Hadza societies
Biological significance of food components suggests that preferences for basic tastes should be similar
across cultures. On the other hand, cultural factors play an important role in diet and can consequently
influence individual preference for food. To date, very few studies have compared basic tastes preferences
among populations of very diverse environmental and cultural conditions, and research rather did
not involve traditional populations for whom the biological significance of different food components
might be the most pronounced. Hence, our study focused on basic taste preferences in three populations,
covering a broad difference in diet due to environmental and cultural conditions, market availability,
dietary habits and food acquirement: 1) a modern society (Poles, n ¼ 200), 2) forager-horticulturalists
from Amazon/Bolivia (Tsimane', n ¼ 138), and 3) hunter-gatherers from Tanzania (Hadza, n ¼ 85). The
preferences for basic tastes were measured with sprays containing supra-threshold levels of sweet, sour,
bitter, salty, and umami taste solutions. We observed several interesting differences between participating
societies. We found that Tsimane’ and Polish participants liked the sweet taste more than other
tastes, while Hadza participants liked salty and sour tastes more than the remaining tastes. Further,
Polish people found bitter taste particularly aversive, which was not observed in the traditional societies.
Interestingly, no cross-cultural differences were observed for relative liking of umami taste e it was rated
closely to neutral by members of all participating societies. Additionally, Hadza showed a pattern to like
basic tastes that are more common to their current diet than societies with access to different food
sources. These findings demonstrate the impact of diet and market availability on preference for basic
tastes.