I don’t remember ever really identifying what cilantro was until I was in college. Before that, I never pinpointed why I hated certain salads or guacamoles. I found it had a weird, sort of soapy taste that I couldn’t trace to any particular item. I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me to ask until college, but that’s when my roommate informed me those green flakes of off-flavored, soapy, bitter destruction was indeed cilantro and she didn’t think so  at all.

Cilantro is also called coriander and Chinese parsley in other parts of the world. It’s an annual herb and is from the carrot, parsnip, and celery family whose leaves contain several vitamins such as C, A, and K

After looking through some research, it’s found that cilantro is a very polarizing herb. Some work was done on simply asking 1400 young Canadian adults on their preference for cilantro and looking at their ethnic background. This University of Toronto study found that 21% of East Asians and 17% of Caucasians had an aversion to cilantro, while only 4% of Hispanics and 3% of Middle Eastern subjects had the same aversion. (It must be noted that the numbers of the different ethnicities interviewed are not equal. For example, there were 581 Caucasian people interviewed and only 27 Hispanic people).

This is the first step into looking for a genetic link. Because if people from similar backgrounds have the same aversion to a particular substance, then the next step would be to see of they all have something specific in their genes that it the “culprit” of sorts.

And lo and behold that’s where the science led. To further confirm a possible genetic link, a study was conducted during the early 2000’s in Twinsburg, OH at the Annual Twin festival. Researchers from the Sense Center of Philadelphia asked both fraternal and identical twins about their cilantro preferences. For 80% of the identical twins, they had the same preference for the herb. Only 50% of the fraternal twins interviewed had the same preference however. Since identical twins share 100% of their DNA and fraternal only 50% (just like any other siblings born to the same parents), there was further evidence to confirm a possible genetic link.

23andMe, a genetics company in California, analyzed genomes of around 30,000 people to see if their were specific genes that correlated with a like or dislike of cilantro. They asked these 30,000 people whether they liked or disliked cilantro and also what they thought it tasted like. Then gene analysis was done on the subjects that said cilantro tasted like soap. It was actually found that these subjects had a group of smell receptor genes that were similar, in particular OR6A2. OR2A6 is a gene that specifically encoded for the olfactory receptor that detects aldehydes.

It turns out when this gene is activated, it increase the sensitivity for the smell of aldehydes. Since both cilantro and soap contain a bunch of different aldehydes, this could be one reason for the link.

In addition the 23andMe study also found that 11.5% of Europeans who did not have the OR2A6 gene also reported a soapy taste. So as is the story with a lot of other things in this world- it’s complicated. Turns out there are multiple other genes that could also be the culprit, including one bitter-tasting receptor identified by Antti Knaapila and his team in 2012. It’s also important not to exclude environmental factors, such as growing up in a household that constantly east cilantro or none at all.

Even though more research needs to be conducted to determine all possible genetic links to cilantro aversion, my fellow cilantro-haters can live without fear of being called a “picky” eater, because how we have some genetics to back it up. Fun Fact: Julia Child, arguably one of the most famous chefs in the world, absolutely hated cilantro. When Larry King asked if she would eat a dish that contained cilantro, she replied “Never. I would pick it out if I saw it and throw it on the floor.”