Are your taste buds setting you up for cancer?

Do you feel like your mouth is about to explode when you eat anything spicier than mild salsa? Or do you order Indian food extra spicy and relish every bite?

Food preferences come in all shapes and sizes. Some people have a raging sweet tooth. Others add salt to everything. And others chomp on a habanero pepper like it’s a piece of candy.

But there’s one taste preference that could harm your health. It may even put you at risk for cancer…

Sensitivity to bitterness.

How hating bitter foods affects your cancer risk

If dark leafy greens, grapefruits and other bitter foods make you cringe, you could have a much higher risk of cancer.

A recent study from researchers at Penn State University and Leeds University found that women who are sensitive to bitterness have a 40 to 58 percent higher risk. Yikes!

The study included 5,500 women whose diet, lifestyle and health were monitored for 20 years. Women in the study were also categorized in three groups based on their sensitivity to bitterness.

Women who were extremely sensitive to bitterness were “super tasters.” Women who were somewhat sensitive to bitterness were “tasters.” And women who weren’t sensitive to bitterness were “non-tasters.”

In the end, super tasters were 58 percent more likely to get cancer, and tasters were 40 percent more likely to get cancer. Why?

Well, that’s the tricky part. At first, researchers thought it was because people with an aversion to bitterness were less likely to eat vegetables, which are often bitter.

But that’s not it. They checked, and super tasters and tasters ate just as many vegetables as non-tasters. So, what else could it be?

It’s still a mystery. All researchers know is that it’s most likely due to the foods and drinks people who dislike bitter flavors are or aren’t eating. Basically, it comes down to their whole diet, not just one part of it.

Can you learn to like bitter foods?

If you’re up for it, you could try to retrain your taste buds to tolerate bitter foods better. Because there are a lot of healthy bitter foods you’re missing out on, like ginger, arugula, apple cider vinegar, tea, coffee, broccoli rabe, Brussels sprouts, dandelion greens, radicchio, kale, grapefruit and cranberries, just to name a few.

It’s possible to learn to like foods by eating more of them. Although physical factors like genetics and the number of tiny bumps on your tongue (papillae, which contain many of your taste buds) influence your food preferences, at least part of your taste is learned from early childhood experiences. So, you can rewire it to some degree.

You can also try practical ways to make bitter food more palatable. You can pair bitter foods with sweeter foods, so they go down easier. For example, you could sauté a bitter vegetable like spinach with a sweeter vegetable like red pepper.

You can also use salt and spices to hide bitterness. Garlic and salt go a long way toward making anything taste good in my opinion. And sautéed onion can also camouflage a bitter-flavored veggie.

Whatever you do, try not to avoid bitter foods altogether. Whether an aversion to bitterness increases cancer risk or not, there’s no denying that missing out on bitter foods also means missing out on health benefits.

Bitter foods tend to be raw foods and plant-based foods brimming with bioactive compounds. They tend to help with detox, digestion and other processes necessary for good health. So, taking action to help your taste buds tolerate bitter foods better is a great investment in better health.