Most people today barely taste “bitter” anymore…and our physiology is built for it.
➡️ Bitter receptors line not only the tongue, but also the entire gastrointestinal tract, where they help regulate motility, digestive secretions, blood sugar, and appetite via hormones like CCK and GLP‑1.
As dietary biodiversity has collapsed (fewer wild greens, spices, roots, and truly bitter plant foods in our diets) so has our everyday exposure to this pharmacology of taste, replaced by ultra‑processed foods that are engineered to be sweet, salty, and hyper‑palatable while masking or removing bitterness.
In parallel, we’re witnessing an unprecedented rise in GLP‑1 agonist use for weight management and metabolic disease, effectively outsourcing functions that our own bitter–gut signaling axis evolved to help manage.
This carousel can remind us what a “bitter‑rich” diet actually looks like:
A few of the key classes of bitter phytochemicals, how they work on digestion and metabolism, and where to find them again in herbs and foods.
To see the full downloadable PDF, go to the LinkedIn post here: