Forbidden Knowledge: Coriander Theory

Most people know the cilantro controversy. Some people hate cilantro, because they think it tastes like soap. Others love it, and have no idea what those people are talking about. And even others still — like me — probably like it because it tastes like soap. The list goes on.

As it turns out, there’s some science to this: there is a specific gene, the cilantro gene, that develops taste buds in such a specific way that cilantro tastes bad. For the most part, this is a fluke: this gene effects far more important things, and this cilantro thing is probably just a minor byproduct. And, fortunately, you don’t need cilantro to live — just avoid Mexican restaurants.

And yet, the idea of a gene ruling over your taste leads to some much more fascinating — and much more forbidden — possibilities.

No one in the world has aversion to water. No one in the world has aversion to food, either — well, as a genetic byproduct and not a mental illness byproduct at least. Your basic needs are always covered. You never have to worry about your genes trying to make you go hungry or thirsty and die.

But many people don’t like vegetables.

I’ll admit, I’m one of them. Even the “real” vegetable dishes from Indian and African cultures I just cannot stand. Eggplants are too mushy. Peppers are too bitter. Tomatoes just taste like a worse orange.

There are other people I know who love vegetables. They will take a raw carrot straight out of the ground and eat it whole. And love every second of it. Fuckin’ weirdos.

Now, there are two ways you could explain this. The boring explanation is that my aversion to vegetables is simply a mental one — yes, I am an extreme case, but it could be that I simply have not found my dream combination of vegetables that work best for me. The other, more fascinating (and less scientifically-grounded) explanation is that I have some sort of gene that makes me unable to enjoy the entire vegetable family.

This latter idea is a much bigger problem than simply not liking cilantro. Vegetables are universally considered to be the most important food group for your nutrition, and cutting them significantly from your diet in comparison to other people puts you at a huge disadvantage. In case 1, we just hit the universal consensus: we need to teach people more about vegetables, have them learn more yummy recipes, put good veggies in school lunches, etc. etc. But, in case 2… it implies something else.

It implies that some people are genetically superior and will live longer lives due to their taste buds.

This is the core of “Coriander Theory” — also sometimes called “Coriander Veins Theory” — based on the plant from which cilantro comes from. To be clear, there is absolutely zero science backing this idea at all, other than “well it happened for cilantro, maybe it happens for other stuff”, which is in fact not how science works. Another huge problem with this is that taste buds work at chemical levels — people with the soap gene do not hate cilantro, they hate the exact chemical compound that makes up 55% of cilantro’s DNA. There is no exact compound that makes up a vegetable. Vegetables are, by scientific definition, any edible plant. ANY edible plant! And even if you were doing the stricter nutritional definition, which removes “seed-bearing plants of a flowering variety” (i.e. grains, nuts, seeds, and fruits) you STILL have a massive amount of diversity to deal with. There is virtually no chemical tissue that ties together a rhubarb, a carrot, and a batch of spinach. It is seemingly impossible to be born with a legitimate genetic outcome which permanently bars you from enjoying vegetables.

So maybe I do need to just learn to enjoy some leafy greens. Still, the genetic idea is interesting (and certainly forbidden). When we think about things like eugenics and natural selection, we’re usually only thinking of surface terms like “who runs faster” or “who has large muscles”. But we don’t really think about the second- or third-level consequences of these things, like enjoyment of vegetables or having fun while exercising, all things which would make you more fit and, therefore, more “genetically superior” to your counterparts. Try thinking on your own on some cases which might work!

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