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Dubanx t1_j9tqj7x wrote

Reply to comment by Zchwns in Why is urine yellow? by nateblackmt

People's sense of smell & taste tend are known to be heavily dependent on genetic factors, but are super complicated. It's my understanding that these aren't determined by a single gene but the interactions between multiple genes. So they're poorly understood as a result. In general, smell and taste aren't something that gets determined by a single recessive or dominant gene.

For what determines excretion, I just don't know.

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Zchwns t1_j9tr1a1 wrote

Interesting! Thank you!

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Dubanx t1_j9tst9o wrote

No problem. It's not just limited to asparagus pee too. Taste & Smell are exceptional in how much they vary from one person to another. A famous example is "phenylthiocarbamide". One person spilt some in a lab setting and was confused as to why everyone around him was talking about the smell.

Another example is how certain vegetables, such as spinach, taste terribly bitter to some people and perfectly fine to others. A common trope is a mother screaming at her son/daughter to eat their veggies while the dad sits quietly because he also hates spinach.

Mom lacks the genes which make them taste bad while the children and dad do. The kids aren't just being picky, they literally taste significantly differently between mother and child.

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BizzarduousTask t1_j9tuhf1 wrote

And cilantro! For a not-insignificant number of people it tastes like soap!

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Elegyjay t1_j9ublnv wrote

And broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts... the very smell of them cooking makes me gag and I have tried to eat them but can't keep them down.

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GypsyV3nom t1_j9tsldx wrote

Taste and smell have some pretty insane under-the-hood processing that occurs in the brain. There are only about 400 different receptors in the human nose, but the different responses of those 400 receptors to odorants allows humans to detect over one trillion distinct scents. And that's just for humans, who have a relatively poor sense of smell compared to other mammals

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