So THAT’S why some people can’t stomach broccoli!

WHETHER you like broccoli is genetic, say researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia.

When we eat vegetables from the brassica group — such as cauliflower and broccoli — they react with saliva, releasing a sulphurous compound.

It’s thought that our unique mix of mouth bacteria affects the levels of the compound — and how the food tastes. In the study, saliva samples from parents and their children were mixed with cauliflower — with each parent and child pair found to have similar levels of the compound.

The theory is that if you produce more, you’re more likely to dislike the veg, and that altering mouth bacteria could help improve our diets, reports the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.