“Recent findings suggest that pain and pleasure share common neurochemical circuits, and studies in animals and humans show that opioid-mediated descending pathways can inhibit or facilitate pain”1
While this quote from the abstract of a Journal of Neuroscience article is meant to pertain to specific medication that is an agonist/antagonist to opioid receptors, naloxone, the general concept can be applied to many facets of life including residency which is pain and pleasure embodied. This statement also can easily be made about spicy food.
My husband and I burn for spicy food. When we had been dating for about a year, we ventured to Thailand for a week. Seeing as were not about to pay 25 bucks a person for a fancy breakfast at our hotel, we ventured to the local street vendors for a plate of deliciously mouth numbing curry and jasmine rice.
Well, we didn’t think this through quite enough because as we went to buy something to drink, our mouths ablaze, the lovely vendor offered us a bucket of tap water and a ladle. Considering that my stomach is fairly sensitive and I didn’t even survive a night at the Texas state fair without my gastric contents painting the lining of the toilet bowl, I wasn’t about to imbibe a gallon of e. coli laden tap water certain to make my linings explode. Surely, one can imagine a bunch of sun burnt idiots running around the alleys of Bangkok with their tongues hanging out of their mouths.
Even though the experience was painful, it was by far a happy moment in my life. This is because chilies are one of those foods that cause as much pleasure as they do pain. Paul Rozin, psychology expert suggests that spicy food are a “constrained risk” in that the act is a generally harmless however the body responds in with a warning system that is physically painful. Basically, people love spicy food because it feels dangerous but it isn’t. 2
I actually made these tamales for a recipe contest on Food52, a weekly competition for a community-compiled cookbook. One of my recipes, this soup, actually was picked to be published in the cookbook. Anyway, one of the problems with being a resident and an idiot is that I misunderstood when the entry time was over. I spent all day making these tamales and I didn’t even submit them.
The contest theme was coffee, so I braised short ribs in coffee and spices and then made a blistering red sauce to coat the meat to fill the tamales. The caffeine and chile is a great combination for your gastritis…I recommend taking a prilosec first. I think that if you just made the meat and the sauce and skipped all of the corn husk, tamale steaming assembly disaster and used the meat as a taco filling or serve it with rice and beans it would be a delicious meal. Our tongues were burning with deliciousness.
The first appliance that I bought when I got my own kitchen 4 years ago was an ice cream maker. I already and a microwave and toaster; an ice cream maker was the next logical purchase. Every time that I waltzed down the Costco appliances aisle, it was screaming my name.
While purchasing an ice cream maker might seem like an excessive, unnecessary purchase, I think it is not. Chocolate peanut butter ice cream cakes? Chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches, homemade? People love this stuff. If you make ice cream at home, you will make friends.
The hardest part about making ice cream is remembering to put the maker in the freezer at least a day ahead of time. Good ice cream is made of so few ingredients that the assembly is simple. So, you make the ice cream (or frozen yogurt in this case), you freeze it for a few more hours for it to harden up, and you take a spoon directly to the container and BAM! As you ravenously destroy your homemade delicacy you get a chilling headache running from your eyes to the back of your head. BRAINFREEZE!
What causes brain freeze or ice cream headache anyway? Current neurologic models suggest that vascular constriction and referred pain are to blame [1]. A life-saving randomized trial performed at Dalewood Middle School showed that ice cream headaches were more prevalent in the group that ate the ice cream in less than 5 seconds versus the group that savored every last spoonful [2].
A survey of over 8000 Taiwanese adolescents showed the prevalence of ice cream headache is about 40% [3]. Boys were more likely to have brain freeze than girls, and older children were more likely to have brain freeze than younger ones. Those that had chronic migraines were much more likely to have ice cream headache. The association between ice cream headache and migraine has been shown in the past, however is still disputed considering one study showed that people with brain freeze were less likely to have migraines [4,5].
The best brain freeze is self induced. Therefore, I recommend making this creamy chocolate malt frozen yogurt. It is very tangy from the yogurt, not like the chemically altered, gooey sugary stuff from the mall, so if you don’t like yogurt, you probably won’t like this either. The yogurt is strained for about 4 hours beforehand to remove excess water so the result is very creamy with a lot less calories than regular ice cream, although I do add some cream to give a good texture and flavor.
Chocolate Malt Frozen Yogurt
4 cups low fat plain yogurt
1 cup heavy cream
¾ cup sugar
½ cup cocoa powder
½ cup malt powder
Cheesecloth
Place a couple of layers of cheesecloth over a strainer over a bowl. Add yogurt and cover.
Refrigerate for at least 4 hours until the yogurt has lost most of its moisture. Sift chocolate powder into cream, add sugar and malt powder. Stir to combine. Whisk in strained yogurt and add to ice cream maker as directed. Freeze until hardened.
1. Kaczorowski, M., & Kaczorowski, J. (2002). Ice cream evoked headaches (ICE-H) study: randomised trial of accelerated versus cautious ice cream eating regimen. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 325(7378), 1445-6.
2. Hulihan, J. (1997). Ice cream headache. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 314(7091), 1364.
3. Fuh, J., Wang, S., Lu, S., & Juang, K. (2003). Ice-cream headache--a large survey of 8359 adolescents. Cephalalgia, 23(10), 977-81.
4. Raskin NH, Kittle SC. Ice cream headache and orthostatic symptoms in patients with migraine. Headache 1976; 16:222–5.
5. Bird N, MacGregor A, Wilkinson MIP. Ice cream headache-site, duration, and relationship to migraine. Headache 1992; 32:35–8.
As the snow keeps drifting down, the wind keeps a blowing, and the gray skies ever make me desire a personal psychiatric consult, the citrus aisle of the grocery store is a welcomed reminder that there are palm trees and sanity in blessed parts of the United States of America. As you can tell from repeated posts and reminders, I’m not really a fan of winter. I particularly disdain the bleak species where the snow turns black and there’s no topographic variation to permit skiing or mountainous exploration.***
I have employed a variety coping mechanisms for the seasonal blahs. Tactics have included the evasive, fleeing the northern hemisphere in December for summery South America for six months; the illuminating, having my fiancé design and build me a “happy lamp” as a sun substitute; and the caloric, particularly baking.
A less proud moment of winters past may have involved an entire chocolate layer cake topped with toasted walnuts and about a pound of homemade buttery caramel that I ate—alone. (At least I completed an Olympic distance triathlon that summer.) Now I moderate a bit better, but I still love to bake during the winter. Benefits of winter baking include, admittedly, the cold weather allowing the oven to steam the windows Titanic style, and of course, the citrus. Not only are the lemons and oranges beautiful, but the grapefruits are brilliant in baked goods.
The grapefruit, the beloved seemingly benign diet food of America also has a more mischievous side. Grapefruit juice can be a bad player when taken with a variety of medications. This discovery, like many scientific discoveries was hobbled upon coincidentally.
In the 1980s in attempts to study the interaction between ethanol and a popular blood pressure medication, scientists decided on a Saturday night to make a felodipine Cosmopolitan with grapefruit juice to help the booze go down a bit better [1]. When they ran the experiment, they found that patients who took the drug with the cocktail had significantly lower blood pressures than those who had no alcohol. Somebody astutely suggested it was the juice, not the liquor that caused such drastic changes in the drug metabolism.
Since this time, the grapefruit juice/medication interaction has been further explored. [2,3]. Many medications are metabolized through an enzymatic pathway. It appears that grapefruit juice reduces the prevalence of the enzyme CYP3A4 part of the cytochrome P450 in both the gut and the liver. This allows for more medicine to be absorbed in the intestine and allows for medicines to linger in greater concentrations. This can exacerbate toxic effects of multiple drugs.
A list of common medications that interact with grapefruit are listed here. If you are concerned, please talk to your doctor. If you are not taking any of these medications, feel free to participate in the construction and destruction of a luscious grapefruit lemon bar. The benefit of the grapefruit is a complex sweetness with a less harsh tartness that I find many lemon bars have. The crust is a modified shortbread recipe, so it is crisp, crumbly and light, with a bit of sour cream to echo the acidity in the filling. The filling is more of a curd than a sturdy baked custard, so these treats are best eaten with a fork after refrigerated overnight. The curd would also work great on toast or as a filling for cakes or cookies so feel free to separate the elements and work with what pleases you.
Grapefruit lemon bars
Shortbread Crust
Adopted from Joy of Cooking
¾ cup unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks) softened
2 tbsp sour cream
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar)
2 tbsp granulated sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In large bowl beat all ingredients minus flour. Stir in flour. Light knead until blended. In 8x8 baking pan with fingers press dough into bottom and up around the edges about ¾”. Bake for about 35 minutes or until lightly browned and darker at the edges. While baking, make the curd filling. Allow to cool slightly for about 5 minutes and add the curd. Refrigerate for 4-5 hours or until cool and set. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!
Grapefruit Curd
Adopted from James Peterson’s Baking
Juice and zest from one ruby red grapefruit (about 1 cup juice)
Juice and zest from one lemon
4 eggs
¾ cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter cut into tablespoon pieces
Set a saucepan of water over medium heat and bring to a simmer. In a heatproof bowl that will fit over pan, whisk together eggs and sugar for about 2 minutes until pale. Then whisk zests and juice. Set the bowl over the saucepan. Stir constantly with a whisk for about 8 minutes or until the mixture starts to thicken. Add the sliced butter, one piece at a time and stir constantly. Cook for about 2 minutes longed. Remove from heat.
***On a side note completely unrelated to the core of this essay, I have just undergone the most unbelievable ritual to prove that winter is evil. Coincidentally, my car and my fiancé’s car break simultaneously. Our lovely repair shop lends us a loaner. After spending an hour driving through blustery conditions to drop him off and then drive to the hospital, I roll down the window to take a parking ticket. The window falls into the door with impressive speed and doesn’t come out. I then proceed to drive through downtown with no window while it snows into the car.
1. Bailey D et al. Ethanol enhances the hemodynamic effects of felodipine. Clin Invest Med 1989: 12: 357-362.
2. Dahan A et al. Food Drug interaction: grapefruit juice augments drug bioavailability—mechanism, extent and relevance. 2004. European journal of Clinical Nutrition. 58, 1-9. 3. Bailey D et al. Grapefruit Juice-Drug Interactions. 1998. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 46: 101-110.
Raw eggs make great food. If you’ve ever been to my house for dinner, or eaten something I brought to a party, you’ve probably eaten raw eggs. Yes, I know, I’m a horrible friend because I didn’t tell you, and now I’m announcing it on the internet. You may never come back.
But before you decide that you’d rather not acquaint with me, let me just say this. Yes, salmonella infection is a risk if you eat raw eggs, and yes, I put you at risk. Even so, according to the CDC, 1 in 10,000 eggs are currently contaminated with salmonella 1. The highest rate of egg contamination is in the Northeastern region of the US, which, thankfully (not to off-put the lovely inhabitants of New England) I do not live in.
A risk is a risk. Let’s put this risk into perspective. As a human dweller of North America, you have about a 40% lifetime risk of getting cancer, a 4/10,000 risk of having a pulmonary embolus if you take birth control pills, and if you were born in 2000, which obviously you weren’t, you have a 35% lifetime risk of developing diabetes! 2,3,4. So, one in ten thousand? I’ll take my chances on a creamy, yolky, tiramisu and work on becoming that one in three with “a touch of sugar”. I guess my risk of salmonella is actually higher since I probably eat 200 plus eggs a year, but even so, most of them are cooked.*
Salmonella can dwell in the ovary of the chicken, and thus the egg becomes infected before the shell is formed. Proper washing of the egg does NOT prevent salmonella, even though when I was sheepishly watching Rachel Ray the other day, she said her husband told her to put the eggs in warm water and whatdyaknow it’ll go away! Check your sources, lady. Even so, using fresh eggs and keeping them refrigerated can prevent the bacteria from multiplying.
Eggs and chickens are not the only foods that put you at risk of salmonella. Vegetables, peanut butter and other “safe foods” are contaminated with some nasty pathogens. In a 2009 report analyzing food related bacterial illnesses in 2006, 21% of cases were related to poultry, 17% were related to leafy vegetables and 16% were related to fruits and nuts 5. One multi-state outbreak was attributed to “baked goods contaminated by floor sealant”. Maple syrup is not the same as polyurethane.
Raw egg yolks make a beautiful base for a salad dressing. They emulsify the fat and water based ingredients to make a rich, creamy dressing. In this salad, which is my punchy version of a Caesar salad, I like to add poached chicken thighs which are moist and flavorful, boiled new potatoes for starch, radishes for a strong bite, and red chilies for a kick.
Elizabeth’s Caesar-ian Section Salad
For the dressing:
One egg yolk (I like to separate eggs with my hands)
Juice of one lime
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
One clove of garlic smashed and finely chopped
¼ cup finely (and freshly) grated parmesan cheese
Lots of black pepper
1 tbs finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 tbs finely chopped fresh mint
medium shallot diced finely
½ tbs salt
¾ cup olive oil
1 lb chicken thighs
1 lb new potatoes boiled until tender
Radishes, finely sliced
½ pound of romaine washed, dried and chopped
½ red chili seeded diced finely
1 yellow pepper chopped
2 green onions chopped
For the dressing:
Separate the egg yolk from the white, add the garlic, lime and vinegar, whisk together. Add the parmesan, pepper, salt. Add ½ cup of olive oil in a steady stream whisking constantly. Add the shallots and herbs, add remaining ¼ cup oil. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours for flavors to blend if you have the time.
To poach the chicken:
In a pan with lid, fill with water about ½ inch-1 inch, season with salt, add chicken. On medium-low heat simmer chicken, covered for 10 minutes and then flip. Cook for 10 more minutes. If you are using chicken breasts instead, reduce the cooking time to about 7 minutes on each side.
To assemble salad, slice up chicken and potatoes. Add veggies and toss dressing (you might have extra dressing). I’m assuming people know how to put things in a bowl.
3. Farmer, RD., et al. 1997. Population-based study of risk of venous thromboembolism associated with various oral contraceptives. The Lancet 349, no. 9045:83-8.
4. Narayan, KM., et al. 2003. Lifetime risk for diabetes mellitus in the United States. JAMA : Journal of the American Medical Association 290, no. 14:1884-90.
5. 2009. Surveillance for foodborne disease outbreaks - United States, 2006. MMWR: Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report 58, no. 22:609-15.
* Disclaimer: if you are pregnant or immunosuppressed in any way, don’t eat raw eggs.
For my birthday this year, I proclaimed to my family "No more kitchen supplies!". It seems that when you develop a hobby, be it cooking, or knitting, or biking, then all of the sudden, that's all you get for Christmas, birthdays, or any other celebration. No longer is the longed for sweater, a good novel, or a funny DVD. Well thankfully, my sister didn't listen to my birthday demand, and in the mail (thank god for free shipping from Amazon) came a brand new cast iron pan. And bless her soul! Cast iron is genius.
If you don't have a cast iron pan, I strongly recommend that you get one. They are extremely affordable, they cook very evenly, you can put them in the oven without the handle melting off, and if you take care of them they will last forever. They do require a little more maintenance than your regular kitchen utensil. You have to season them which means initially scrubbing the pan with hot soap and water, heating the pan, and smoking hot oil into layers, but this makes a natural non-stick layer. There are many methods for seasoning and this and this are good instructional videos.
When my pan had gotten a little out-of-control sticky, I went on a search of how to re-season it. I stumbled upon resources mentioning that cast iron cooking can contribute to iron intake because elemental iron leaches into the food that we cook. They go even further to suggest that cast iron could be part of the treatment for anemia. Fascinating. Time to scour the evidence. Unfortunately, a lot of the original papers that discuss the amount of iron in different foods from cast iron cooking are from the 80s and not available online. It would seem a little overkill to go to the library and find the original articles for a blog that five people read (but thank you if you are one of them). Even so, the abstracts suggest that cast iron does contribute significantly to the iron concentrations in various foods (1,2).
Interestingly though, are more recent studies that use cast iron as an attempted treatment to prevent iron deficient anemia in underdeveloped countries, since anemia is endemic in many parts of the world. A study completed in Ethiopia in the 1990s distributed cast iron or aluminum pots to families of children with iron deficiency anemia and measured the difference in hemoglobin concentrations after 12 months(everybody in the study also took oral iron supplements) (3). They also measured the amount of iron available in Ethiopian foods cooked in various vessels. The findings showed a significant difference in hemoglobin concentrations in those children that received cast iron-cooked food versus aluminum or clay. Vegetables and meat best extracted iron from the food into a digestible form. Beans for some reason, did not do as good of a job. Similar experiments repeated in other countries have yielded similar results, showing an excellent and easy way to combat low blood counts (4,5)
Fortunately, we do not live with the daily threats of malaria, hookworm and starvation. Even so, iron deficient anemia is prominent in our population especially in women of menstrual age, pregnant women, and those that do not get enough through their diet. In attempts to perfuse your vital organs with rich, red blood built with the powerful iron element, I leave you with this recipe. (Caution: do not eat steak with butter everyday. That is NOT good for your blood)
New York Strip Steaks with Balsamic Glaze
2 thick NY strip steaks 1 tbsp butter 1 medium shallot 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar salt and pepper to taste
1. Preheat your oven to 400 F 2. Preheat your cast iron pan to a medium-high/high heat 3. dry your steaks on a paper towel (the drier they are, the better sear you will get) 4. salt and pepper steaks generously on both sides 5. put half of the butter in the preheated pan and allow to melt 6. add steaks to pan 5. put steaks in pan; cook for about 4 minutes on each side 6. put steaks in oven for 2-5 minutes depending on how done you would like them 7. take steaks out of oven (be careful because the handle is very very hot) and put on a plate to rest, put the pan back on the stove over medium heat 8. with the pan drippings, put other half of butter (or if it too greasy for you already don't) and then saute shallot until transluscent 9. deglaze pan with balsamic vinegar. If the sauce is too dry add a bit of sherry or water 10. pour over steaks and serve
bibliography:
1.Burroughs, AL.; Chan, JJ. “Iron content of some Mexican-American foods. Effect of cooking in iron, glass, or aluminum utensils.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, v. 60 issue 2, 1972, p. 123-6.
2.Brittin, HC.; Nossaman, CE. “Iron content of food cooked in iron utensils.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, v. 86 issue 7, 1986, p. 897-901.
3. Adish, A., Esrey, S., Gyorkos, T., Jean-Baptiste, J., & Rojhani, A. (1999). Effect of consumption of food cooked in iron pots on iron status and growth of young children: a randomised trial. The Lancet, 353(9154), 712-6.
4. Borigato, E., & Martinez, F. (1998). Iron nutritional status is improved in Brazilian preterm infants fed food cooked in iron pots. The Journal of nutrition, 128(5), 855-9.
5. Geerligs, P., Brabin, B., Mkumbwa, A., Broadhead, R., & Cuevas, L. (2003). The effect on haemoglobin of the use of iron cooking pots in rural Malawian households in an area with high malaria prevalence: a randomized trial. Tropical Medicine and International Health, 8(4), 310-5.
MMM. Brussel sprouts. Who doesn't love them? In the doldrums of winter with very little greenery and little else to look forward to, when the cold darkness slowly eats at the core of every human soul, what else could brighten up my day more than a deliciously prepared emerald brussel sprout? Even if I adore them, brussel sprouts are the vegetable of disdain to many small (and large) children.
It would appear that this seemingly small offender, a tiny cabbage, wouldn't cause so much trouble. But, it seems that the hate of brussel sprouts, and also cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, tea, coffee, and tobacco have a genetic basis. Although this is not new news, it certainly is to me. What could be better than the interface between food and science? A quick search on PubMed unveils a body of research as to why some children hate vegetables. With genetics to blame, parents are now completely off the hook for the nutritional deficiencies of their children with a diet of mac and cheese and chicken fingers.
Brussel sprouts contain large amounts of the chemical phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) and a related compound propylthiouracil (PROP). No need to worry about chemistry, just know that these compounds cause some foods to taste bitter. Scientists and anthropologists have known for a long time that different ethnic groups have different sensitivities and likes to bitter compounds and foods. Because many poisons and toxins are also bitter, this distaste could potentially have an evolutionary advantage, promoting the forager to pick a sweet berry vs. a poisonous mushroom. It was unknown, however, whether this variance in tastes was cultural, environmental, genetic, or a mixture.
Recently, and by recently I mean 7 years ago, with the advent of improved techniques for studying and isolating genetic material, a group of scientists discovered the gene and its mutations which accounts for the variations in taste of bitter food (1). Without getting too technical, the gene, TAS2R38has three loci(regions) that have mutated to produce multiple variations of the gene. These mutations were found to account for the majority people's ability to taste or not taste bitter foods. (Of course, these genes do not account for 100% of the ability to taste bitter. Even if in freshman biology genetics seemed so short pea or tall pea, there are so many modifying factors for the expression of a trait that science is simply not that straight-forward.)
This fascinating genetic discovery was followed by many complex and rich studies to explain cultural and age related differences for the dislike of brussel sprouts. An excellent study published in Pediatrics in 2005 attempts to explain why children choose the foods they do (2). They discuss the influence of these choices from genetics, culture and their parents' likes and dislikes. After swabbing the mouths of 143 children to isolate the genetic variant of TAS2R38, looking only at the first of three mutations (A vs P) to stratify the group into homozygous AA, heterozygous AP and homozygous PP, the children were given water flavored with different amounts of PROP. The methodology section, unlike most journal articles, is the best part of the paper:
If the solution tasted like water, then they were told to give it to a stuffed toy of Big Bird (a likable, well-known television character puppet); but if it tasted “yucky” or bitter, then they should give it to Oscar the Grouch, “so that he can throw it in his trash can".
Like previous research, this paper showed variations in the ability to taste bitterness based on their genetic differences. Interestingly though, this project also compares children to their parents and their abilities to taste bitterness, and thus provides a possible explanation for why kids piss off their parents so much. The study shows that heterozygous children are more sensitive to PROP than genetically similar people of an older generation. Not only are children more sensitive to PROP when they carry the gene, but their decisions, unlike adults' decisions, "are less constrained by experiential and cognitive factors, and their taste preferences determine intake." This is why, even if we can taste bitterness, we still love beer, coffee, tea and other adult treats and overlook the potential threats of the toxins and poisons we are putting into our bodies (especially broccoli).
Thus, even if YOU are a carrier of a "taster" gene, as it is so lovingly called, you can make the adult decision to like brussel sprouts, and love the bitterly delicious flavors that waft over your taste receptors. Science shows that fewer people are tasters than before and approximately 20-40% of North American Caucasians are non-tasters (3). In Spain, they studied the El Sidron Neanderthal's TAS2R38, discovering that he was a taster (although with a sample size of one Neanderthal, it's hard to know whether his friends liked cauliflower or not) (4). Even if you are a taster, I am assuming we have evolved from Neanderthals. Thus I leave you with a recipe for these little gems topped with bacon, pine nuts, brown sugar, and lemon.
In this recipe, I like to slice up the sprouts very thinly so they cook quickly and evenly. If you prefer whole sprouts then blanch them in boiling water for 1 minute before sauteeing so that they cook inside without burning on the outside.
Ingredients:
1lb brussel sprouts
2-3 slices thick cut bacon
1 shallot diced finely
1/4 cup pine nuts (other nuts such as almonds or walnuts would work too)
juice of one lemon
1 tbs dijon mustard
2 tsp brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1. Wash brussel sprouts thoroughly. Cut off bottom of sprout and discard top few leaves. Slice each sprout vertically and thinly.
2. Mix mustard, sugar and lemon together
3. Preheat large cast iron skillet or other skillet with a small amount of oil on medium-high heat. When hot, add bacon, and cook to your liking. Discard some of the fat (if you want) although not all because this is what you will cook the sprouts in.
4. When bacon is almost finished cooking add shallots and sautee for a couple minutes until translucent
5. Add pine nuts and saute briefly
6. Add brussel sprouts to pan. Salt and pepper to taste. Saute, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes until they are almost cooked (they will turn a bright green and look soft having lost some of their water when they are done)
7. When almost cooked, add lemon/mustard dressing to the mixture and cook out sugar for 1-2 minutes until veggies have slightly caramelized
8. Enjoy!
Bibliography:
1. Kim, UK., et al. Positional cloning of the human quantitative trait locus underlying taste sensitivity to phenylthiocarbamide. Science. 299 (2003) 5610:1221-5
2. Mennella et al. Genetic and Environmental Determinants of Bitter Perception and Sweet Preferences.Pediatrics 115 (2): e216. (2005)
3. Guo, SW. and DR Reed. "The genetics of phenylthiocarbamide perception." Annals of Human Biology 28.2 (2001), 111-42.
4. Lalueza-Fox, C., et al. "Bitter taste perception in Neanderthals through the analysis of the TAS2R38 gene." Biology Letters 5.6 (2009), 809-11.
