Pork chops, bacon, sausages, stew. Your mouth may be watering just from reading their names. Or perhaps it's gone bone-dry and you're trying desperately to rid your mind of the images. You've either got the pork-lovin' gene, or you don't.
Because according to a report published in the open access journal PLoS ONE, liking pork is pre-determined by your genetic make up. The Odorant Receptor OR7D4, makes carriers more sensitive to a specific compound naturally present in pig meat.
Researchers from Animalia/ Nofima/Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Norway, and from Duke University Medical Center/ Monell Chemical Senses Center in the U.S. found that in both smell and taste tests, participants' response depended on the version of the gene they had, with one version resulting in more favorable responses than the other.
…liking pork is pre-determined by your genetic make up
They didn't specify whether being sensitive to the smell and taste of pork made people actually like it more, or whether it was the factor that put them off.
Source: Public Library of Science
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
