People have aversions to food for a variety of reasons. Plenty of food disgust is rooted in cultural exposure. Maybe you don’t come from a seaside location where freshly-caught fish is served with the head on, maybe you were raised in a vegan or vegetarian home, or maybe you’re not from a culinary tradition with fermentation or preservation at its core. Some disgust comes from a particular event that associates a flavor, dish or texture with an unpleasant memory. Others stem from the brain’s instinctive need to avoid things that might make you physically ill — like bacteria, mold, or certain kinds of insects. Plenty of people are highly sensitive about sensory input, and certain triggers originally manifest in childhood but decrease with age. That’s where IDRlabs comes in. Two researchers at the company — Dr. Christina Hartman and Dr. Michael Siegrist — created the Food Disgust Scale as a way of assessing an individual’s emotional disposition to react with disgust to certain food-related stimuli. The scale is broken into 8 categories: animal flesh, hygiene, human contaminants, mold, fruit, fish, vegetables and insect contaminants. The 32-question test contains food-related statements on a scale of agree to disagree and asks questions like how you feel about moldy bread, seeing hair in food, or your feelings about raw fish. The responses are then used to determine your specific triggers, as well as your food disgust percentage. The lower the percentage, the less disgusted you are by such foods. If you want to find out where you stand, head over to the Food Disgust Test and give it a whirl.
