Among my many mouth-watering childhood memories of food lurks one bitter foe. A mouthful of bitter melon, to be precise. Aka the bitter gourd or karela or its cousin-the uchche. It turned up regularly on our lunch platter, being considered a superfood, though the term itself had not been invented then!

It all came back to me as I watched a food show the other day. The recipe involved multiple steps—all designed to wring the bitterness out of the bitter gourd! Sprinkling with salt and vinegar; draining, squeezing, and washing, then adding a sprinkling of sweet and a dash of the sour to make it palatable. All of which seemed to be somewhat pointless. After all, it was born to be bitter!

the virtuous bitter gourd

I decided to investigate. A quick internet search threw up hundreds of articles, all with ‘scientific’ claims, singing paeans to the bitter gourd. Traditional medicine lists its numerous virtues. Not content with pacifying pitta and kapha and balancing your doshas; it detoxifies your entire system, controls/cures/prevents diabetes, and even improves libido! If you’re not impressed, there is more—it reduces body fat, gives you glowing skin and hair, and will also cure a hangover! With such a vast repertoire of virtues, the bitter gourd should have replaced the apple in the well-known proverb. ‘A mouthful of bitter melon keeps maladies away.’

the evolutionary paradox

Interestingly, taste and taste buds developed to help us choose food which was good for us. And bitterness was meant to warn us off potentially toxic food!

So what is happening here? Are we rushing headlong against nature by deliberately swallowing the bitter? Or are our taste buds leading us astray?

bitterness decoded

So is bitter better? As of now, there is no proof that a diet rich in bitters is better than a regular vegetarian diet. The vitamins, minerals, antioxidants found in bitter food are also found in many non-bitter or not-so-bitter green vegetables! So banish the bitter melon if you don’t fancy it.

What is known is that bitter food stimulates digestive enzymes, modulates gastric emptying and gut motility; thus helping us digest our meal. A small helping of bitter greens, or the mouthful of bitter melon that is often served at the start of the meal in many traditional societies, is therefore good for digestion. But you could just as well have a pre-dinner aperitif—like the classic gin and tonic! Or a post-prandial coffee! Or (my favourite)—a nibble of dark chocolate!

Again, it can come as no surprise that bitter food will (very effectively) kill your appetite, make you consume fewer calories and help you lose weight. So go ahead, start your day with a glass of karela juice if you must. Be warned though. What may be good for the waistline may not do much for your mood!

its all in the genes

Of course there are those who genuinely like the stuff. That’s because some gene variants make us sensitive to very small amounts of bitter compounds, while others make us ‘bitter-insensitive.‘ In short, for some, bitterness loses its bite. So love it or hate it – its all in your genes!

The bitter pill

While the term ‘bitter pill’, was first used only in the 18^th century, plant-based alkaloids—often bitter—have been in use as medication for millennia. The best known of these is, of course, quinine, first used by the Incas against malaria. Bitterness thus became associated with wellness—as something that acted as an antidote to illness!

Perhaps we assign great virtue to bitter food because they represent the perfect metaphor for life. Just as we believe that unpleasant experiences serve a higher purpose – that adversities strengthen our resolve, toughen our moral fibre and are generally ‘good for our soul’, so too we believe that bitterness acts in mysterious ways to cleanse and strengthen our physical bodies.

bittersweet

Bitter medicine, bitter food and the bitter truth are thus perceived as being ‘good’ for us—unpalatable but wholesome. Undoubtedly too, a taste of the bitter does help us savour sweetness the better—in life as in food!