World Hate Cilantro Day丨Does cilantro smell good or bad to you?

Science Fiction Network, February 24 (Xu Mingyang) Are you a "cilantro lover" who likes cilantro to go with everything, or an "anti-cilantro person" who wants cilantro to disappear from the earth? Is "World Hate Cilantro Day" your holiday?

According to unofficial statistics, about 15% of the world's population does not eat coriander, which means that 15 out of every 100 people in the world do not like coriander. Therefore, every February 24th, they hold a "World Hate Coriander Day". People who hate coriander have also formed an "Anti-Coriander Alliance" to express their dissatisfaction with coriander in various ways on this day.

Coriander, also known as cilantro and cilantro, is native to the Mediterranean region of Europe and was introduced to China by Zhang Qian during the Western Han Dynasty. The tender stems and fresh leaves of coriander have a special fragrance. It is said that it was cultivated in Egypt 3,500 years ago. It is one of the earliest spices in the world.

Why does the same coriander smell delicious to some people, but smells like "stinky soap", "stinky rubber" or even "bugs" to others? What exactly causes this polarization of "one man's honey is another man's poison"?

A foreign survey shows that whether you smell coriander is fragrant or smelly is determined by your genes. Researchers asked nearly 50,000 customers about the taste of coriander to find out whether they like the taste of coriander and whether they think coriander smells like soap.

The results showed that those who felt that cilantro smelled like soap carried a special gene called "OR6A2". The receptor gene of "OR6A2" can affect the sense of smell. If this gene mutates, the gene carrier may be abnormally sensitive to the smell of aldehydes, including cilantro. In addition, data showed that the number of East Asians and Europeans who dislike cilantro is much higher than that of Africans.