Some people just can't stand pork and it's not always because of their religion either. In fact, according to a recent study published in the journal PLoS ONE, our genes actually have a say in just how much pork we can eat or not. Apparently, people with two copies of a gene associated with an odor receptor are more sensitive to the smell of the male compound in meat called androstenone. Commonly found in pork, androstenone may be at high or low levels.
Researchers gathered 23 subjects together to determine if some people are just genetically predisposed to be sensitive to the smell of pork. They soon found out that the participants who were more sensitive to the smell had the RT/RT genotype. This meant that they had two copies of the functional RT gene.
According to researchers, this may be why some people are less fond of pork than others. Given how much we already know about genetics, researchers believe that the study "could be very useful in product development, to learn which flavor sensors are correlated with which flavors. More research is needed, but we may be able to revise the way we recruit consumer groups for evaluating product development."
(Photo by BBQ Junkie via Flickr Creative Commons)
