How Bitter Is Your Diet?

Some people have a “sweet tooth”, others amongst us may be more of a bitter soul. Not like that—your writer here is a delight in all ways, but does enjoy unsweetened espresso ristretto, strong long-steeped green tea, dark leafy greens, and so forth.

This has its merits, often because of the high polyphenol content of such foods and drinks:

• Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
• Sharp Tastes, Sharp Brain?
• The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
• Cocoa vs Biological Aging!
• Are You Getting The Right Kinds Of Flavonoids?

But what about in terms of assessing a diet as a whole, rather than individual “superfoods”?

Bitter is better

The key idea here is that dietary bitterness (i.e. the average bitterness of your diet, taking into account both quantity and intensity of bitter foods) can be a useful proxy for overall diet quality.

For example, researchers (Dr. Zinat Mohammadpour et al.) did a study using data from 8,975 adults, and found that people with more bitter foods in their diets generally had healthier, more nutritious eating patterns and diets more closely aligned with dietary guidelines.

There were many such associations, but some of the top ones included:

• More bitter diets contained more plant foods: compared with the least bitter diets, the most bitter diets included 30% more vegetables, 34% more fruit, and 36% more wholegrain cereals.
• They also contained more low-fat dairy: low-fat dairy intake was 57.2% higher in the most bitter dietary group. In this case, that means very good odds of getting in useful nutrients and fermented probiotics, without going over the top on saturated animal fats.
• Refined grains featured a lot less in them: the most bitter diets contained 18% less refined cereal than the least bitter diets. This is unequivocally good. Whole grains are a good part of a healthy balanced diet; refined grains are not. See for example: Grains: Bread Of Life, Or Cereal Killer?

Nor was it all about foods:

• Beverages dominated dietary bitterness: beverages accounted for 87% of total dietary bitterness, compared with 13% for solid foods. In the most bitter dietary group, beverages accounted for 94.6%.
• Coffee and tea were major contributors: the most bitter diets had 285% higher tea and coffee consumption, along with 6% higher milk consumption.
• Soft drinks and juices featured a lot less: the most bitter diets contained 16% less soft drink and 10% less juice. This is again a very good thing. See for example Soft Drinks & Your Liver: Sugar vs Sugar-Free Sweeteners and Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same? ← this latter article explains why fruit is generally very healthy, while fruit juice is metabolically bad (even if it contains good nutrients, is hydrating, etc).

If you don’t love bitter foods, don’t worry: Dr. Mohammadpour and her team emphasized that a diet does not need to contain intensely bitter foods. Increasing the amount of mildly bitter foods, such as salad vegetables and broccoli, can raise overall dietary bitterness. Like we said up top, it’s about the average bitterness of your diet as a whole, not individual superfoods.

You can read this paper in full, with all its data, here: Bitterness as an indicator of diet quality: A secondary analysis of the Australian National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey

Want to learn more?

For a very healthy polyphenol-laden starter menu, consider:

21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them

Enjoy!