Cilantro Happens.

But the cilantroversy doesn’t make us angry, polarized sociopaths.

I wanted to live in a more connected, less polarized world…so I studied cilantro.

Some of us Americans LOVE the taste of cilantro and some of us taste moldy stinkbug+rubber+garbage+gym foot+vile soap — some of us HATE it so, so hard.

23andME says our olfactory receptor OR6A2 gene causes our different perceptions of cilantro (and other aldehyde chemicals). The geneticists aren’t sure exactly why or when that gene flips towards tasty or towards the disgusting repulsion zone in 10–21% of us. The OR6A2 is not hereditary and not very predictable — it seems pretty random as far as I could discern from the research.

· 20% of identical twins don’t share the same perception of cilantro.

· 50% of fraternal twins don’t share the same perception of cilantro .

· I’m a twin and my older brother is also a twin. So these statistics made me curious. I did my own study — I polled three generations of my family…35% loved it; 50% hated it; 15% didn’t care either way.

These stats are interesting for about 5 seconds then most of us move on. No big deal. No drama.

Whether you already knew about the OR6A2 effect on perception or not, I bet none of…